Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

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.

When Laura Munson's husband, after 15 years of marriage announces, out of the blue, that he never loved her and wants to leave, she responds with all the calm of Siddhartha. Her "I don't buy it" becomes the overarching theme of the months of emotional spousal abuse that her husband heaps of her and the children. She engages in tortured rationalizations and denial. He stays out all night, stands up her and the children, insults her repeatedly, yet she rationalizes his behavior as a transient crisis. She is convinced that he is not with another woman when he doesn't come home. She takes absolutely no responsibility for the rupture, even though it's clear to the reader that she is a spoiled, materialistic, pampered woman who rationalizes her need for the finer things in life as wishing to be "surrounded by beauty," as if that isn't the wish of us all. When it is clear that they can no longer afford their 20 Montana acres with dream kitchen, 4 gardens, sushi habit, and horse, she makes no attempt for gainful employment to help out with family finances. You see, she is a - WRITER - has always been a WRITER, - yet unpublished after nearly two decades of copious product. Oh, she does toy with the thought that she would contribute by freelancing magazine articles, as if all she would have to do is submit and the depressed publishing industry would reward. What she does do is take a one month vacation with her daughter to Italy. She feels entitled to this even though no money is coming into the household.

What is unbelievably bizarre is what that woman doesn't do during this trying time. She is totally incurious about her husband's whereabouts at all times of the night. She never seems to try to get a handle on what the family finances are and how long the savings will last. She gives no thought to what she might do for a living (grad school, perhaps) She does not take an appropriate effort to protect her children from her husband's shenanigans-, the first he stands up her children should have been the last time. She never consults a divorce lawyer, even though the husband is sure that he wants to move out. She has managed to elevate putting up with abuse into some sort of virtue, for this woman is so controlled that she never once raises her voice in the face of his monstrous behavior. The lack of humanity is creepy and what is equally creepy is that is she actually manages to keep her grandiose vision of herself intact and undamaged. What kind of woman would even want a man who was capable of treating his family so dismissively? How did she endure this? Was she packed full of Prozac? My conclusion is that I don't buy it. There are way too many missing pieces to this poorly-written story. She annoyingly addresses the reader directly throughout the book. Beware, at its conclusion, there is a reading list of books on her nightstand. I imagine this to prove to the reader that she is a woman of quality. At least now she can say that she is published.

"Faithful Reader" hit the nail on the head. Laura Munson seems blind to any sort of connection between, say, her family's financial problems and their marble countertops; her husband's crisis of confidence in her and her refusal to get a paying job to help out the team; their "insane debt" and the stress in their marriage; the fact that she doesn't quite feel like a "real Montanan" with the fact that they picked up and moved there to open a brewery with no experience-based knowledge of brewing or Montana. She's "spiritual" but not in any way that requires her to be hard on herself.

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.

This is the story of a VERY spoiled girl who has indulged in a lifetime of egotistical introspection while unsuccessfully attempting to be a "writer". She doesn't work, she surrounds herself with "beauty", longs to return to Italy, mourns her father's death to a neurotic degree, and quite frankly, seems to be TOTALLY checked out of her own marriage. So, it is no surprise her husband wants to leave her. I would too. And she should have let him. Instead of taking responsibility for her role in the failure of her marriage, she embarks on a creepily manipulative path to make him stay.
Ironically, she is espousing the same approach evangelical Christian women are advised to take when their husbands want out. Don't fight it. And pray a lot. Laura doesn't really pray, but she makes a lot of vague references to God.
There is nothing new here, and the level of entitlement and privilege she indulges in makes this a story not many readers can relate to. Let me tell you, in the middle of my ugly divorce, I never once said, "I've got to see my horse." Which she does. With a straight face.

Laura Munson somehow managed to write this book while she was going through one of the most critical times in her life. She kept her household going, took care of her children and her animals, and made herself into a better person as she dealt with her husband's desertion. When her husband announced he didn't love her, Laura didn't buy it. She recognized that he was in a crisis situation and decided that whether her marriage held together or not, she was going to survive and take control of her own happiness. Though the uncertainty must have been excruciating during the worst moments, she kept to her goal. I couldn't help but admire her courage and her wisdom as, with the help of a great therapist, Laura got through this dark period.

The book is written as if Laura Munson is confiding directly to you and that you and she are good friends. She writes with raw emotion as she explains her strategy to give her husband time to see what's really important while not making the mistake of pushing or demanding. I found myself nodding and agreeing that what she was doing, while difficult, was exactly the right approach. At times I hurt for her and other times I cheered her on, but at all times I pulled for her to come out on the other side as the person she wanted to be--someone who had put an end to her suffering and become the source of her own happiness.

Laura Munson is a gifted writer and a wise soul. I look forward to reading more of her books.

What was originally a somewhat intriguing newspaper piece about a woman who refused to accept her husband's assertions that he no longer loved her and wanted out of their marriage has not been improved by being expanded into a book. The author's prose style is the first drawback to the book- lifeless, choppy, cliche ridden, it very nearly made me stop reading just a few pages in. Structurally, the author takes several hundred pages to really get to the story she is trying to tell and the points she wants to make. I can understand why the author has so many unpublished manuscripts.( And was this book even edited?)

Unfortunately for a memoir, the author comes off as less than forthright , and very self-aggrandizing. Her premise-that she is responsible for her own happiness- (referred to , pretentiously, as " The End of Suffering") is not any kind of breakthrough concept and the author can't explain how to do this or convince us that she managed it herself. Those looking for advice on how to keep a marriage together should go elsewhere, unless the vague instructions of giving the husband room and waiting him out seems like useful strategies. I hope no one takes her passivity as a strategy . Or her money management tips- worried about your finances? Don't get a job- take a trip to Italy!

A very one-sided and self- serving book, dull as a memoir and nearly useless as a self- help book. For an interesting, well-written and insightful book on the breakup of a marriage, read " Falling Apart in One Piece" instead.

One terrible day in early summer Laura Munson's husband reveals terrible secrets. His business, which supports their family, has failed. They may lose their home, the only one their children have ever known. They are in terrible, overwhelming debt. Then her husband says that he is miserable and thinks he never loved her. This revelation comes after weeks of mysterious disappearances, late nights during which he claims to have "fallen asleep" on the office sofa, nights spent drinking in town.

What you might ask, should a woman do in this situation? Try to save their home for their children, by getting a job? Get a complete accounting of their financial picture so she can begin to solve the problems? Try to get her husband medical help for what appears to be severe depression? Throw him out altogether?

Ah no.

Laura Munson concentrates on not feeling bad. She has written this book to share that wisdom.

In this depressing and self-absorbed memoir, Laura Munson tells us far more about herself than she realizes is being revealed. This is a book about a woman with 17 rejected manuscripts in her desk, who talks about being a "writer of books." This is a book about a woman who talks constantly about her and her husband's failed careers--while describing exactly how neither of them would make the normal compromises that even moderately successful people make. This book is about a woman who takes no responsibility for her family's being able to eat from day to day--and buys herself a $2000 horse trailer when the mortgage is in doubt. (Hey, her husband said it was okay.)

Why did I keep reading? The fate of Munson's children, the innocents in this mess, kept me turning the pages. The end of the book provides a short term answer but not a satisfying one. For someone who is supposedly interested in personal growth, Munson seems to have lived a life of denial and nothing about the book's conclusion made me believe that that would change.

Laura Munson's wisdom echoes long after reading "This Is Not the Book You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness." Like a pioneer she has mapped a new journey into critical times--one of hope, responsibility and self-renewal.
Her trials are many. Her husband's failing company and financial hardships. His leaving after 15 years of marriage and two young children, the grief from the loss of her beloved father and not finding professional success as a writer. Finally, at age forty-one and countless hours of therapy she realizes she must stop basing her happiness on things outside her control.
When her husband said, "I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever did,"as he left. She didn't cry, rage or threaten she said simply, "I don't buy it." Munson explains, "You see...I'd committed to 'The End of Suffering.' I'd...decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it." In a later chapter she elaborates, "Responsible growth. It feels so good to imagine it. In the land. In my marriage. In myself...But I'm not taking it personally like I might have in the past. I can be passionate but not attached to the outcome. I can dream a little." About getting unstuck she says, "I decide to return to my breath and be with the moment. Stay in the moment."
What impressed me most is how Munson walked her talk. Although her impulse was to do otherwise she was truly a guardian of her husband's solitude. She detached enough from her hurt, anger and fear to love without conditions. In the face of despair, she had gratitude for her great kids and friends and her passion for writing, gardening, cooking, horseback riding, travel (twice to Italy) and the natural beauty of Montana.
She says, "I wrote the book to shine a light on an otherwise dim or even pitch black corner, to provide relief for myself and others." She confides, "I lived through something truly difficult with some level of grace and some level of success. I wrote it down. Which brought me relief. I want to bring relief to others." Her simple, practical and powerful lessons on the importance of attitude, responsibility and choice moves us to look at our lives anew and shows how greater love, courage and compassion can be part of our own story.
Her powerful story and poetic writing kept me riveted.