But You Seemed So Happy: A Marriage, in Pieces and Bits
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In this tender, funny, and sharp companion to her acclaimed memoir-in-essays Amateur Hour, Kimberly Harrington explores and confronts marriage, divorce, and the ways love, loss, and longing shape a life.
Six weeks after Kimberly and her husband announced their divorce, she began work on a book that she thought would only be about divorce — heavy on the dark humor with a light coating of anger and annoyance. After all, on the heels of planning to dissolve a twenty-year marriage they had chosen to still live together in the same house with their kids. Throw in a global pandemic and her idea of what the end of a marriage should look and feel like was flipped even further on its head.
This originally dark and caustic exploration turned into a more empathetic exercise, as she worked to understand what this relationship meant and why marriage matters so much. Over the course of two years of what was supposed to be a temporary period of transition, she sifted through her past—how she formed her ideas about relationships, sex, marriage, and divorce. And she dug back into the history of her marriage — how she and her future ex-husband had met, what it felt like to be madly in love, how they had changed over time, the impact having children had on their relationship, and what they still owed one another.
But You Seemed So Happy is a time capsule of sorts. It’s about getting older and repeatedly dying on the hill of being wiser, only to discover you were never all that dumb to begin with. It’s an honest, intimate biography of a marriage, from its heady, idealistic, and easy beginnings to it slowly coming apart and finally to its evolution into something completely unexpected. As she probes what it means when everyone assumes you’re happy as long as you’re still married, Harrington skewers engagement photos, Gen X singularity, small-town busybodies, and the casual way we make life-altering decisions when we’re young. Ultimately, this moving and funny memoir in essays is a vulnerable and irreverent act of forgiveness—of ourselves, our partners, and the relationships that have run their course but will always hold profound and permanent meaning in our lives.
Kimberly Harrington
Kimberly Harrington is the author of Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words and But You Seemed So Happy: A Marriage, In Pieces and Bits. Her work is included in the collections Merciless & Unpredictable: A McSweeney's Guide to Parenting and Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: Twenty-One Years of Humor From McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. She’s a columnist and regular contributor to McSweeney’s and her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and The Cut. A long-time copywriter and creative director for design studios and brands, her clients have included Apple, Nike, and Netflix.
Related to But You Seemed So Happy
Related ebooks
The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gutsy: Mindfulness Practices for Everyday Bravery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGirl Unbroken: A Sister's Harrowing Story of Survival from The Streets of Long Island to the Farms of Idaho Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kin: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kindness of Strangers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fates Will Find Their Way: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal by Jen Waite | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFuriously Happy: A Novel by Jenny Lawson | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Working for Justice: One Family’s Tale of Murder, Betrayal, and Healing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Birth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stay Where I Can See You: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stranger in the Woods Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ones We Keep: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHollywood Park: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Don't Have a Happy Place: Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let's Pretend This Never Happened: by Jenny Lawson | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Own Magic: A Reappearing Act Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hey Ladies!: The Story of 8 Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Vow: A Memoir of Marriage (and Other Affairs) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Offender: My FatheraEUR(tm)s Secrets, My Secret Shame Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Matthew Fray's This Is How Your Marriage Ends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You and I, as Mothers: A Raw and Honest Guide to Motherhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFaith and the Camp Snob: #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Danielle Henderson's The Ugly Cry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmall Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First.: 10 Questions to Take Your Friendships to the Next Level Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When Your Mother Doesn't: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Humor & Satire For You
Love and Other Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swamp Story: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best F*cking Activity Book Ever: Irreverent (and Slightly Vulgar) Activities for Adults Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Swiss: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Soulmate Equation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Go the F**k to Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindful As F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In a Holidaze Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Best Joke Book (Period): Hundreds of the Funniest, Silliest, Most Ridiculous Jokes Ever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Hacks: Over 100 Tricks, Shortcuts, and Secrets to Set Your Sex Life on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for But You Seemed So Happy
12 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5There is so much exposition; I was genuinely lost in what the context was leading up to.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very relatable book about the complexities of relationships. Maybe not lasting decades, marriage and children, but I think we've all had relationships where we stayed because it was comfortable and while not great, not bad either. Smart, funny, sad, hope-inspiring and hope-crushing this book covers a lot of ground spanning the beginning loving phase of their relationship to the end more "meh" phase. I appreciated the honesty the author showed by trying to as open as possible and exploring both sides of the marriage and reflecting on her own struggles and contributions.