This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness [Hardcover]

Laura Munson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010

Laura Munson's essay in the New York Times, about the time she was tested in a way she never anticipated, created a firestorm-now here's the whole story.

When Laura Munson's essay was published, The New York Times was so flooded with responses that they had to close down the comment feature. Readers wrote in saying that they had sent the column to all of their friends. Therapists wrote Munson to tell her that they were passing it out to their clients.

What did Munson write that caused such a fervor?

Laura detailed what happened when her husband of more than twenty years told her he wasn't sure he loved her anymore and wanted to move out. And while you might think you know where this story is going, this isn't the story you think it is. Laura's response to her husband: I don't buy it.

In this poignant, wise, and often funny memoir, Munson recounts a period of months in which her faith in herself-and her marriage-was put to the test. Shaken to the core after the death of her beloved father, not finding the professional success that she had hoped for, and after countless hours of therapy, Laura finally, at age forty, realized she had to stop basing her happiness on things outside her control and commit herself to an "End of Suffering." This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... chronicles a woman coming to terms with the myths we tell ourselves-and others-about our life and realizing that ultimately happiness is completely within our control.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A kind of colloquial diary composed during the rocky summer her husband was suffering a midlife crisis, debut author Munson aims to convince the reader, in her chatty, self-absorbed narrative, that her hard-won serenity helped conquer her husband's shakiness at committing himself to their future together. When her husband (who remains nameless) announced his uncertainty that he loved her, then embarked on bizarrely atypical behavior, leaving her and their two children, eight and 12, wondering where he was, Munson had her own notions about what was ailing him, reinforced by mountains of self-help books and therapists: his job was failing, he was drowning in debt, and he was worried about losing their fabulous 20-acre horse-and-ski farm in rural Montana. Munson hoped he could regain a sense of gratitude for what they had, namely 15 years of a loving family. Munson urged her husband to take a trip, as she had just returned from a month-long rejuvenating stint to Italy, or even helicopter lessons, yet his resentment of her ran deeper than she cared to confront. She concentrated on what she could control, namely creating a nice home and throwing herself into community activism, then witnessed with joy her husband's gradual coming around. Unfortunately, Munson's journey doesn't ring entirely convincing or forthright, and if the title truly reflected her marital crisis, the reader might run the other way. (Apr.)
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Review

"Laura Munson takes the spiritual stuff and the personal stuff and the love stuff and the pain stuff and she brews them all together in a very fun and touching memoir. I''m a fan. This is a wonderful book."
-Marianne Williamson

"This Is Not the Story You Think It Is is true to its title. The book took me by surprise. I read it in one sitting and loved Munson''s tone, wit, wisdom and writing."
-Anita Shreve

"Let me tell you what this book is about. This is a book about saying yes. It''s the story of Laura Munson''s alchemical ability to create abundance and bounty in the face of scarcity and abandonment-no small triumph. Filled with gems big and small. . . Munson is a wonderful guide-wise, brave, and tenaciously honest."
-Melanie Gideon, author of The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After

"This book is fabulous. Laura Munson''s noble quest to become the source of her own happiness will take you by the hand and heart as it guides you through the steps to living a life without suffering. Her story pulls back the curtain on the only magic we ever need to know: how to make the shift from fear to love."
-Arielle Ford, author of The Soulmate Secret

"Laura Munson''s powerful and buoyant book gives us wisdom in generous slices. But it is Munson''s abilities as a storyteller that show us how to discover-how to find and feel-the real wisdom that may arise from our lives, as messy and heartbreaking as they may be. Woman, wife, mother, neighbor-this fine writer converts her own life''s journeys into a series of vignettes so focused and compelling, so heartbreaking, sometimes so funny, that they resound with the force of parables."
-David Baker, poetry editor of "The Kenyon Review"

"Laura Munson has served up a whopping portion of sanity. This book has the potential to start a cultural revolution."
-Leif Peterson, author of Catherine Wheels and Normal Like Us

"I loved this book. It''s unusual, memorable and wry, laugh-out-loud funny too."
-Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Crazy Love and Mommy Wars

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399156658
• ISBN-13: 978-0399156656
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi, I'm Laura Munson and I'm a writer living in Montana. I wrote an essay for the Modern Love column of the New York Times (published on August 2, 2009) called "Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear."
The reaction stunned me. It was the number one most read article on the New York Times website for the days following the essay's publication; the top searched for two months. It crashed the New York Times website comments section, and created a firestorm all over the internet, around dining tables, at offices, and book groups across America and internationally. It was reproduced in The Week and on Oprah Online, and in many newspapers.
The essay was the short version of a memoir I wrote during a rough time in my marriage because I needed that book on my bedside table--one which would speak to me from the trenches, letting me know that I could be powerful and even happy, especially in a crisis. Mine could be a different response than what we see so often in our society. I didn't have to be reactionary. I didn't have to play victim. I didn't have to suffer. But I couldn't find a book like that--a simple story of a woman's journey that wasn't specifically spiritual or self-help, but like sitting with a gentle friend who is willing to be vulnerable and share her world so we don't have to feel so alone. I couldn't find that book, so I wrote it. That's what we writers do. We write what we know. We write for ourselves and we write to provide relief for others. We write our way through life, and in some cases, we write our way to life. That's how it happened for me during that challenging time.
My agent, Tricia Davey (Davey Literary & Media) went out with the book version that Monday morning, and after writing for twenty years, having completed fourteen novels and endured countless rejections...within forty-eight hours, I had a book deal.
The book is called "This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness," and came out in April 2010 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam.
Both the essay and the book are ultimately about how to be responsible for your own well-being, especially during a crisis. Plug it into any crisis. Plug it into any and no religion. It's a powerful way to live. I'm thrilled to announce that the book landed on the New York Times bestseller list, that Book of the Month Club named it one of this year's best books, and that it is currently a bestseller in Australia. It will also be published in Germany, The Netherlands, UK, China, and Taiwan.
I look forward to sharing the rest of my story with you all!
Come say hi on my website: http://www.lauramunsonauthor.com. And sign up for my monthly HAVEN NEWSLETTER, in which I select a topic, write about it, and encourage you to join me in a live chat on my blog: http://www.lauramunson.wordpress.com.
Yrs.
Laura

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful--unflinching and uplifting, February 23, 2010

By 

Jody (Northwest Ohio) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Nine hours after announcing that he's not sure he loves her any more, Laura Munson's husband has not yet returned home from an errand, and she's in some doubt if and when he ever will. It's clear this is not going to be a warm and fuzzy memoir and yes, it's written in present tense. Ms. Munson is very honest in saying she's not sure how the story will end. The only thing she is sure of is that her tormented husband will not get to decide how and when their relationship will end and that she can choose to not suffer, no matter what the outcome. She invites the reader to go along with her on her journey, and it's an unusual and adventurous one, though not always pretty.

The reader becomes Munson's confidante and with her, experiences the disappointment, rage, and hurt caused by her husband's thoughtlessness, but we also discover the joy that comes from the realization that while we can't always control events, we can control our reactions to them. Munson recognizes her husband's pain, and somehow she manages to give him the space he needs to heal, while guarding her own well being as well as that of their children. It's not easy, and her life becomes a series of little battles as she protects her children, maintains her own career, keeps the household running while being compassionate about her husband's state of mind without getting sucked into it. Somehow she also upholds her vow to be happy and not suffer. It helps that she's a writer, has a great therapist, and a few trustworthy and non-judgmental friends and her own interests as well as living in a place of great beauty, with twenty acres, two ponds, a horse, four gardens and two great children, though she thoroughly makes her point that pain is pain, no matter what the economic context.

This could have been a depressing and typical midlife crisis story. It could also have been whiny and New Age. It's none of these. It is an honest and not always flattering chronicle of Ms. Munson's constant struggle over that summer to not suffer, create happiness, and let go of the need and desire to know what happens next. It's a very personal and courageous story that will resonate with anyone who's ever experienced the ups, downs and out of controlness of a long-term relationship. It's inspiring--not because it has a storybook happy ever after ending, although in a way it does, but because the ending is incidental to the story. In her zen like journey, Ms. Munson proves that we do have a stunning power to alter the quality of our lives. That's something we all need to learn and well worth proving.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Let Me Tell You How Special I Am!, May 23, 2011

By 

Teresa Jeanne "trk" (kansas, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness (Hardcover)

I suppose congratulations are in order to the author for finally getting a book published. Even if it is not very well written. (It was actually painful at times to read something that read like an above average 16 year old wrote it). To her credit, the author does TRY to mock herself and her husband for their grandiose pretensions that they have somehow created a more special life than anyone else... particularly anyone else from their very privileged *families of origin*. We are constantly reminded that: a) at least one of them is descended from Mayflower passengers ; they come from affluent backrounds and attended the best schools; and that she has heirloom china, crystal and silver. All of which has made her treasure *beauty*. Because no one raised in modest families of origin could possibly appreciate the beauty of Steuben crystal or Haviland and Herend china or grow a garden of roses and herbs or smell mint properly. She congratulates herself and her husband for *rejecting* the social status they were born into as they forge a new life in the western part of the country. Doing the very trendy and cliche thing of *writing* (fruitlessly) managing a microbrewery, having horses, 20 acres of land and a kitchen with marble counters and stainless steel appliances and an *Italian stove*. Completely oblvious to the fact that they did the *trendy thing* of Seattle, Montana, Wyoming et al. that everyone else in their age group was doing. In other words, they are living the cliche of their particular generation's search for the same status their parents sought when they joined the country clubs in suburban Chicago and New York. (I am reminded of a niece of mine and her husband ...who pride themselves for being artistic and free and above all that materialistic yearning who asked for cookware for Christmas...AllClad only please..Calphalon is too pedestrian for them).

The husband, who does appear to be a rather selfish twit, abandoned a good but hardly challenging job managing a microbrewery in order to *make a killing* with an employment recruiting and placement business run from the small Montana town they had settled in. She blamed its failure on 9/11 but in fact..it was a bad concept in a bad location and anyone with any sense could have figured this out. They are in financial straits and she decides it would be a good time to go to Italy. She claims the fares for the family of four could be paid for with frequent flyer miles (a claim I find as believable as her claim that she just so happened to have in her freezer the exact things she needed to make the perfect cassoulet and in her pantry a jar of rendered duck fat). The husband doesn't join her and when she returns he is in a snit. DUH!

I am not giving this book one star because she does offer ONE strategy for coping with hostility from her husband...namely keeping her mouth shut. She really does not seem to have any sense of the gravity of their financial situation as she spends money on helicopter lessons for her 40 plus year old husband (with no clue as to how lucrative this profession may be) and at the end of the book a horse trailer so she can take her horse wherever she wants. Because after all, it was the money earned doing her writing that she was spending.

Over the past 15-20 years, the *memoir* has become the vehicle of choice for anyone who has pretensions of being a published writer. Some are quite engaging, humorous, or compelling. This one was just self-indulgent and poorly written and I wonder how on earth it was ever considered worthy of publication.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Read, January 15, 2011

By 

Allen H. Ramsay (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness (Hardcover)

I was really excited to read this book after finding the original article, "Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear," so mesmerizing. But Ms. Munson should have stopped there. Her talent lies in short, witty, vulnerable prose, but when she extends it to the length of a book, it just doesn't fly. It feels like a writing assignment that has been padded with all kinds of fluff so it would meet the required number of pages.

Her journal is choppy and self-indulgent, and she is embarrassingly disconnected with reality. I find it hard to relate to someone who constantly complains about their massive debt and financial situation, yet travels to Italy, has a horse and a boat, and never considers getting a paying job. She doesn't even seem remotely interested in where the money is coming from to buy the organic vegetables she uses for canning tomato sauce, a process we had to read about ad nauseum as she tried to paint a picture of what a great mother looks like. And she is annoyingly self-important, talking about her gift of "creating beauty around her," as if the rest of the world is full of hacks who have no idea how to arrange flowers or set a table.

I did not find Ms. Munson to be an empathetic or relatable person in this book. Although her husband is equally unattractive given his bad behavior, I found myself rooting for him to make the break so he wouldn't have to listen to how awesome she is for the rest of his life, strutting around the house in her chaps and arranging her grandma's silver. I continued reading the book in hopes that there would be some pearls of wisdom somewhere (there weren't). Finally, an "end to suffering" when I finished it.