Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding by Jacobina Martin

Then there’s the little matter of careers. Bina, clad in black and a tad reserved, seems grateful to yield the spotlight to her charismatic mom, who shows up in rose lipstick and a peacock-blue coat. Judith, 71, wears her hair pinned up Bina’s flows past her shoulders. The occasion is the publication of the first book they’ve written together, “Miss Manners’ Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding” (Norton), and the younger Martin’s effective coming out as a member of the Manners clan.Īt first glance, the Martins are a study in contrasts.

The jokes flowed freely when this mother-daughter odd couple got together for what proved to be a surprisingly raucous interview in a plywood-paneled classroom at the Second City Training Center. Laughing uproariously, both women implore us to present the line in its proper context: Instead, she turns to the woman who has dared to put words in her mouth: her daughter, Jacobina “Bina” Martin, an improv instructor at Chicago’s Second City. Martin, it turns out, is not the source of this acid-etched one-liner. “Beating,” a familiar voice declares emphatically. So, perhaps, we can be excused for failing, at first, to fully process her answer to the perennial softball question: “Parents today have trouble instilling manners in their children.

She’s Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, the reigning queen of American etiquette. CHICAGO – Even from a distance, through a glass door, she’s instantly recognizable: the imperious gaze, the elegantly arched brows, the signature Victorian up-do that has graced best-sellers for more than a quarter-century.

Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding by Jacobina Martin