{"product_id":"but-you-seemed-so-happy-a-marriage-in-pieces-and-bits-isbn-9780063143005","title":"But You Seemed So Happy: A Marriage, in Pieces and Bits","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn this tender, funny, and sharp companion to her\u003cbr\u003eacclaimed memoir-in-essays \u003cem\u003eAmateur Hour\u003c\/em\u003e, Kimberly Harrington explores\u003cbr\u003eand confronts marriage, divorce, and the ways love, loss, and longing shape a\u003cbr\u003elife.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSix weeks after Kimberly and her husband announced their\u003cbr\u003edivorce, she began work on a book that she thought would \u003cem\u003eonly\u003c\/em\u003e be about\u003cbr\u003edivorce — heavy on the dark humor with a light coating of anger and annoyance.\u003cbr\u003eAfter all, on the heels of planning to dissolve a twenty-year marriage they had\u003cbr\u003echosen to still live together in the same house with their kids. Throw in a\u003cbr\u003eglobal pandemic and her idea of what the end of a marriage should look and feel\u003cbr\u003elike was flipped even further on its head. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis originally dark and caustic exploration turned into a\u003cbr\u003emore empathetic exercise, as she worked to understand what this relationship\u003cbr\u003emeant and why marriage matters so much. Over the course of two years of what\u003cbr\u003ewas supposed to be a temporary period of transition, she sifted through her\u003cbr\u003epast—how she formed her ideas about relationships, sex, marriage, and divorce.\u003cbr\u003eAnd she dug back into the history of her marriage — how she and her future\u003cbr\u003eex-husband had met, what it felt like to be madly in love, how they had changed\u003cbr\u003eover time, the impact having children had on their relationship, and what they\u003cbr\u003estill owed one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBut You Seemed So Happy\u003c\/em\u003e is a time capsule of sorts.\u003cbr\u003eIt’s about getting older and repeatedly dying on the hill of being wiser, only\u003cbr\u003eto discover you were never all that dumb to begin with. It’s an honest,\u003cbr\u003eintimate biography of a marriage, from its heady, idealistic, and easy\u003cbr\u003ebeginnings to it slowly coming apart and finally to its evolution into\u003cbr\u003esomething completely unexpected. As she probes what it means when everyone assumes\u003cbr\u003eyou’re happy as long as you’re still married, Harrington skewers engagement\u003cbr\u003ephotos, Gen X singularity, small-town busybodies, and the casual way we make\u003cbr\u003elife-altering decisions when we’re young. Ultimately, this moving and funny\u003cbr\u003ememoir in essays is a vulnerable and irreverent act of forgiveness—of\u003cbr\u003eourselves, our partners, and the relationships that have run their course but\u003cbr\u003ewill always hold profound and permanent meaning in our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“Intimate and raw yet meticulously scrubbed of the slightest tinge of self-pity. Harrington explores the pain and intricacies of a marriage and its dissolution with a ruthless, unflinching honesty and gallows humor that makes you feel like you buried a body with her. Did you? Maybe you did.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEmily Flake, cartoonist for The New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kimberly Harrington is back with another honest, tender, and often hilarious book on the end of a modern marriage. No matter your relationship status, \u003cem\u003eBut You Seemed So Happy \u003c\/em\u003ebegs the question– what are we all doing here?\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eI laughed, I cried, I found myself in the pages over and over again.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKate Baer, New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman: Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Though each piece is decidedly personal, the collection feels universal, encouraging all readers—partnered or not, happily or less so—to reexamine the common narratives around marriage and divorce . . . . Often vulnerable and deeply funny.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I can’t remember a book about divorce I liked as much since Nora Ephron wrote \u003cem\u003eHeartburn\u003c\/em\u003e.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKim France, founding editor of Lucky magazine and co-host of Everything is Fine podcast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In her compassionate treatment of a touchy subject, Harrington flips the divorce narrative on its head to underscore the beauty of choosing one’s own path.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A brilliant collection of essays, this deeply felt, clever tome is a 'biography of a marriage,' as we watch one couple’s issues throughout the years . . . I dove into this one head first and was delighted by the freshness of the material, the insights, the humor, the emotions, and what happens behind someone else’s bedroom door.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKatie Couric Media\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Brimming with witty observations, biting humor, and thoughtful commentary on courtship, marriage, parenting, happiness, inertia, and yes, divorce.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889577029861,"sku":"NP9780063143005","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780063143005.jpg?v=1730231530","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/but-you-seemed-so-happy-a-marriage-in-pieces-and-bits-isbn-9780063143005","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}