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Life in a Marital Institution: Twenty Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Memoir

Inside a manic, messed-up marriage, from the very winning point of view of the tortured husband, based on Braly’s one-man show 

The marriage memoir — from Isabel Gillies’s It Happens Every Day to Julie Metz’s Perfection — has been a balm to beleaguered wives everywhere.  But who speaks for the husbands?  In this sharp, funny glimpse into a very unusual marriage, sensitive, bedraggled, decent James Braly earns the job.  His marriage to a woman so unsuitable for him that their very first meeting — where she corrects the handwriting he uses to write her prized name and number on a slip of paper — sends him into the fetal position is both fascinating and casually shocking by turns.  The scenes from Braly’s marriage are wrapped around the story of where he came from: a colorful, kooky family that includes a fierce fighter pilot dad, a debutante heiress mom, and a delightfully druggy sister dying in a Houston hospice, and who’d rather be dead than married to Anne, who:

- Breastfeeds her children until they are 6 and 7 years old

- Holds forth at a dinner party describing the many excellent recipes for ... placenta ("I know we used a spice that begins with a ‘C’. What was it? Oh, I know: cumin! So delicious that way.")

- Efficiently emasculates our author at every turn, finally kicking him out of the “family bed” in favor of her two precious boys

Braly’s one-man show of the same name is currently touring the country, sponsored by Meredith Vieira Productions, which has optioned the show for film and television rights.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 288
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 978-0-312-60728-9
  • EAN
  • 9780312607289
  • Genres
  • memoir
  • Release date
  • 2013