Lovers Anonymous

"Lovers Anonymous" is a short story first published in Redbook in October 1962 and reprinted in the collections Bagombo Snuff Box in 1999 and Complete Stories in 2017. It was Vonnegut's only publication in that magazine.

Plot Summary

Sheila Hinckley, a young woman from North Crawford that "practically all the men" in town hoped to marry, was known for both her beauty and intelligence. She stated in her high school yearbook that she planned to discover a planet, become the first woman on the Supreme Court, or president of a fire track manufacturer. Twelve years ago while she was a successful student at the University of Vermont, she left school and returned home to wed local bookkeeper Herb White. The night of the wedding, various disappointed men drinking and commiserating jokingly decided to form an unofficial club for the brokenhearted called Lovers Anonymous. Now rumor around town is that Herb and Shelia are having marital difficulties. Lovers Anonymous member and chief of police Kennard Pelk spotted Herb spending the night in the ell next to the main house and various other members such as Hay Boyden the house mover, Will Battola the plumber, Al Tedler the carpenter, and a storm window installer have been hired by Herb to make various improvements to the ell.

While the members converse in the drugstore, they spot Sheila returning a book to the lending library counter. The storm window installer finds that the book is Woman, the Wasted Sex, or, The Swindle of Housewifery. Although initially hostile to the book, he takes it home and reads it in a week and a half, shocked at what he learns. While Sheila had borrowed it, Herb read it after a night when, watching the educational television station, Sheila exclaimed that "she didn't know anything about anything anymore." Realizing that he has condemned his intelligent and talented wife to "keeping house for a small-town bookkeeper," Herb has decided to move into the ell and tend to his own life. While visiting to measure the windows, the storm window installer sees Sheila crying on the couch. She explains that she was crying because she realized that when she was younger she was only pretending to care about the things that she was learning, but now she really does. She's planning to get a degree in two years and start teaching. It turns out Herb moved out first and Sheila realized that he'd also been living a life to take care of others instead of wondering what he could do with his own life. She says the two of them have never been happier and that they still love each other in every way. During a meeting of Lovers Anonymous at the drugstore, the storm window installer brings in the book for the group to see and mentions his wife had read it. The other members say that this will lead to his wife becoming "restless," but he adds that he also left her a bookmark—one of her old report cards.