The Commitment cover art

The Commitment

Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Commitment

By: Dan Savage
Narrated by: Richard Powers
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

In a time when much of the country sees red whenever the subject of gay marriage comes up, Dan Savage - outspoken author of the column Savage Love - makes it personal.

Dan Savage’s mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says “no thanks” because he doesn’t want to act like a straight person. Their 6-year-old son, D.J., says his two dads aren’t “allowed” to get married but that he’d like to come to the reception and eat cake.

Throw into the mix Dan’s straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone - gay or straight, right or left, single or married - howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails.

©2005 Dan Savage (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Gay Studies Journalists, Editors & Publishers Marriage & Long-Term Partnerships
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

It Gets Better cover art
American Savage cover art
Welcome to Paradise cover art
The Poisonwood Bible cover art
A Little Thing Called Life cover art
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake cover art
Mornings on Horseback cover art
It Ended Badly cover art
Pride and Prejudice cover art
Dear Fatty cover art
America's First Daughter cover art
Great Expectations cover art
The Six Wives of Henry VIII cover art
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club) cover art
Edward Unspooled cover art
How Sweet It Is cover art

Critic reviews

“The strongest argument here, which [Savage] brilliantly plays down, is that family means everything to these people: married, not married, blended, gay, straight, whatever.” (Washington Post)

What listeners say about The Commitment

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Such an interesting reading.

witty and interesting! Gotta love Dan Savage!! so interesting to hear more about his life.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant!

I'm a huge Dan Savage fan anyway, but I really loved this book. Something to make you think and to make you laugh.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining essays

Any additional comments?

This is much more a sequence of connected essays than a novel or story, centred around Dan Savages and his male partner Terry's plans for a 10 years together celebration.

There were a few chapters in the middle where the serious overtook the fun and non US readers may find the references to various political names a little glazing, but for the most part there is a great deal of humour and a lot of insight into being gay in the US and into getting married.

At the time of writing (2004) the US legislature at least, in many, perhaps most of its states regarded homosexuals as second class citizens, and that is probably being generous. I don't know how much has changed there. This is one of those books that would really benefit from a few minutes of appendix at the end with an "update" from the author. Perhaps Audible could note that this sort of "add-on" could be a much more realistic feature in the online downloadable world they trade in.

Well worth the read. If you are in Western Europe, it will certainly leave you wondering why the US thinks of itself as the land of the free, at least for some 10% of if citizens!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A great insight into gay parenting!

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

This is a book of three parts. The first is a bit dull, outlining the circumstances of Savage's life leading up to the 'big question' after ten years with his partner: Should we marry? The vignettes about Savage's family aren't hugely interesting, but they're valuable for context. The middle section is Savage talking about the 'gay marriage debate' in the US, and is interesting as it shows the fire in his argument, and the final section - the most entertaining - tells us 'what happened next'. All in all, worth reading.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

It may not be what you think

I should have done more homework before purchasing the audio book. Having only read the Audible Summary I expected a story - perhaps even a bit of humour - on the dynamics of raising a child in a gay family. I got a bit of that, but in essence the book is a very long, rather tedious political treatise on (gay) marriage. I stopped listening halfway through chapter eight, but feel I should have stopped much earlier. It is not that these things should not be debated, it is just that it isn't what I was expecting and looking for.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!