All about breakups

Rosie Wilby is writing a book about her ‘obsession’ with relationship failures.

The comic has signed a deal with publisher Bloomsbury to release the title, The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy Of Heartbreak, next spring.

She says she developed a fixation on the topic after being dumped by email in 2011 – even launching a podcast on the topic –  and the new book is said to revolve around her attempts to ‘understand and conquer the psychology of heartbreak’.

Wilby told trade website The Bookseller: ‘In my mid-40s, I realised I’d had a relatively high number of serious breakups. If I’d been legally able to get married, I’d already be onto my fifth wife.  That puts me on multi-marriage par with Joan Collins. 

‘Yet it was in the fleeting gaps between relationships that I really got shit done. So I launched my podcast The Breakup Monologues in order to investigate whether, behind the heartbreak and chaos, there might be some positive side effects to a separation.’

Wilby previously wrote  Is Monogamy Dead? in 2017, which was shortlisted for the  Polari First Book Prize for the best in LGBTQ writing. 

Her new book will include contributions from Richard Herring,  Sofie Hagen and Ayesha Hazarika and others.

The Breakup Monologues will be published by Green Tree, Bloomsbury's health and wellbeing imprint, on May 27. Order here. 

Published: 12 Oct 2020