Kruse's Keys: Read "How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told" to Be Astounded

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This is a laugh out loud, wincingly raw, weepily sad, grind your teeth TMI memoir by a husband and father whose life is torn apart one day when his wife informs him that she wants a divorce and has been cheating on him with their neighbor for the last three years.  To add insult to injury the neighbor is a man who “wears cargo shorts, on purpose."  The book is rife with this brand of biting humor.  But the book's power comes from Key's eventual introspection and self-evaluation as he grapples with where this Christian church going couple's marriage went wrong. 

The author's journey toward self awareness is one that is equal parts humorous and horrific.  As a Christian reader the best parts come from him seeking wisdom through reading through the Bible--it's hilarious in its irreverence and realness--such as this review of some of the Old Testament: “Exodus read like Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope and the book of Joshua now felt more like Return of the Jedi, with the addition of extensive real estate transactions.”  The horror comes from the way he and his wife talk to one another (apparently to be funny) with the husband  most at fault in these verbal clashes.  

After numerous ups and downs, the reader will no doubt begin to wonder if the book's title is tongue in cheek or a red herring.  Luckily hope begins to emerge as both Harrison and his wife decide to do the excavation necessary to cut back the callouses of their hearts.  This comes through a combination of therapy and a real Jesus loving church.

On therapy: 

"You pay pros to clean your teeth and replace your brake shoes. Why won’t you pay someone to give your marriage a little more mileage, too?"

On their church:

They hug us. They feed us. We feed them. They feed our children and we feed theirs and they feed Gary when we’re out of town and when they’re out of town, we feed their cats. All we’re doing is feeding each other, basically, with hymns and prayers and sermons thrown in there to remind us why.

Two of the author's observations at the memoir's end perfectly frame the talent and gleaned wisdom of the author:

“Compatibility is an accomplishment of marriage, not a prerequisite.”

“We won’t be traumatizing our children with our divorce. We’ll traumatize them with our marriage, as God intended.”

Caveat:  This is not (was not for me at least) an actual how-to book, I disagreed with many of the takeaways (and language) on the church and marriage but it did serve as a wakeup to never let my wife's and my heart reach the point of needing excavation.  Date nights are important, listening is important, serious introspection is HUGE.  You can see in the memoir that both parties neglected each others "bids" beginning early on after their wedding ceremony.  You can read more about 'bids' in this Atlantic Monthly article "Master's of Love" that is so foot-stompingly good that it is on my yearly re-reading list.  

Kruse's Keys: Read "Death Be Not Proud" to Appreciate the Value of Life"

The name of this 1949 memoir was taken from the English poet John Donne’s poem of the same title: “Death Be Not Proud.” In it the author and father John Gunther recounts the life and death of his son who passed after a struggle with a malignant brain tumor. Much as Donne pushes back against death’s supposed power, so does Gunther as he celebrates the vitality and beauty of his son Johnny’s life saying that the book’s purpose was for him “to write, as a mournful tribute not only to Johnny but to the power, the wealth, the unconquerable beauty of the human spirit, will, and soul.” The book’s power comes from the author’s keen power of observation coupled with a very measured, controlled level of sentimentality. A good example comes in retrospect as Gunther considers what it means that Johnny is gone: “All the wonderful things in life are so simple that one is not aware of their wonder until they are beyond touch.”

I came across this book by happenstance as an author mentioned it in an article on memoirs. After finishing it in two days, I struggled as to whether I’d recommend it or not--the writing style does come across as a bit dated and it lacks the emotional punch one would expect of a father losing his son. But ultimately, I believe it’s a worthwhile read because Gunther’s aim was not an emotional “punch” but instead a bestowal of an appreciation of life: “To me, it means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one’s fellow human beings, of the earth.”

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

See our 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes:

Johnny was as sinless as a sunset.
Page: 49

Probably it was at this juncture that we first became seriously impressed with what little doctors do know.
Page: 49

Johnny did not lose function. He lived almost a year after this, and he did not die like a vegetable. He died like a man, with perfect dignity.
Page: 78

Cancer is a rebellion—a gangster outbreak of misplaced cells.
Page: 85

I have so much to do, and there’s so little time!”
Page: 122

Slowly, very slowly, Johnny stepped out of the mass of his fellows and trod by us, carefully keeping in the exact center of the long aisle, looking neither to the left nor the right, but straight ahead, fixedly, with the white bandage flashing in the light through the high windows, his chin up, carefully, not faltering, steady, but slowly, so very slowly. The applause began and then rose and the applause became a storm, as every single person in the old church became whipped up, tight and tense, to see if he would make it. The applause became a thunder, it rose and soared and banged, when Johnny finally reached the pulpit. Mr. Flynt carefully tried to put the diploma in his right hand, as planned. Firmly Johnny took it from right hand to left, as was proper, and while the whole audience rocked now with release from tension, and was still wildly, thunderously applauding, he passed around to the side and, not seeing us, reached his place among his friends.
Page: 136

He never regained consciousness. He died absolutely without fear, and without pain, and without knowing that he was going to die.
Page: 137

for a brief second, and presently, with infinite depth, very slowly and at spaced intervals, three great quivering gasps came out of him. He had regained color just before; he had some final essential spark of animation; he was still fighting. But now these shatteringly deep breaths, arising from something so deep down that his whole body shook and trembled, told us their irrevocable message.
Page: 137

What is life? It departs covertly. Like a thief Death took him.
Page: 140

There are other criteria for measuring a life as well as its duration— quality, intensity. But for us there is no compensation, except that we can go to him though he cannot come to us. For others, I would say that it was his spirit, and only his spirit, that kept him invincibly alive against such dreadful obstacles for so long—this is the central pith and substance of what I am trying
Page: 140

to write, as a mournful tribute not only to Johnny but to the power, the wealth, the unconquerable beauty of the human spirit, will, and soul.
Page: 141

“He hath outsoared the shadow of our night”—what a gallant soul, and what an unfulfilled promise! The fact that this was to be expected makes it no easier to bear, and I hope that you and Mrs. Gunther know that you have all my deepest sympathy.
Page: 142

“He had the most brilliant promise of any child I have ever known.”

Page: 167

During 1947 Johnny wrote little. One of the last scribbles I have of his handwriting is a note: “Scientists will save us all.” His last letter to his mother is in the text above.
Page: 187

not even the birth of one’s child, brings one so close to life as his death.
Page: 188

wasn’t just dying, of course. He was living and dying and being reborn all at the same time each day. How we loved each day. “It’s been another wonderful day, Mother!” he’d say, as I knelt to kiss him good night.
Page: 188

when one is alone with God, what is left in one’s heart? Just this: I wish we had loved Johnny more.
Page: 189

Everybody who knew him, his friends and teachers at Lincoln, Riverdale, and Deerfield, our neighbors in the country at Madison, felt the warmth of his goodness and its great vitality in him. Yet a single cell, mutating experimentally, killed him.
Page: 194

All the wonderful things in life are so simple that one is not aware of their wonder until they are beyond touch. 
Page: 196

To me, it means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one’s fellow human beings, of the earth.

Say Her Name Kindle Notes and Highlights--Beautiful Writing from Goldman

Below are my highlights from my 2014 Reading List selection.
This is a beautiful story that I will want to read again some day soon.  A man's wife dies in a tragic accident (for which her family blames him) and this novel is his recollection of her and his love for her. Heartbreaking and beautiful read.

Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

You have 23 highlighted passages

Last annotated on June 2, 2014

Où sont les axolotls? she wrote in her notebook. Where are they?

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That diamond came and went like a wandering star in the night sky, visible from earth only two or three times a year.

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their windblown fragments of speech like lines experimental poetry.

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Soon we were watching the iridescent pastels of the sunset spreading over the water and blazing in the sky above the strip of jungle between us and the ocean, the whole place throbbing with bird calls, as if every glowing tree and plant hid a boisterous bird or two, and we both felt stunned into separate peaceful meditations on the crazy sublimity of what we were witnessing, each of us filling with a sense of mystical wonder and loneliness that merged into one mystical wonder and loneliness together.

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It was as if we’d just been married in a secret ceremony conducted by the birds.

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Now, I have to guard against the danger of confusing how Aura’s mother regarded me or spoke to me with any aspect of how Aura did—one of death’s corrosive betrayals.

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The way she pronounces Frank when we’re alone, and the way it wakes up my heart. I can hear and feel it inside me, that soft near-honk caressed by plush lips, a down-stuffed vowel that floats on her breath past n and lightly smacks k. But in her writing, in her e-mails, she always called me Paco.

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Love is a religion. You can only believe it when you’ve experienced it.

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Moments of temporary separation and absence and even loss that were like little rehearsals for what was coming. Not premonition, but actual visitations, death coming through its portal, taking Aura away, putting her back, receding back into its hole.

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To reach the beach where our hotel was, we’d turn off the highway onto a long stretch of dirt road, the car hitting the softer surface at nearly highway speed, bouncing and seeming to lift off and float through a brown cloud of churned-up dirt as if riding one prolonged note of José José’s sonorous voice, and that sense of dislocation again, of being propelled through a portal, from an in-between world, back into the beach town of Tulum.

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never understood it, this awful urge to push her off the subway platform while simultaneously pulling her to safety, rescuing her from phantom fiends but also from myself.

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Love does change your behavior, it does force you to aim for a higher standard. change

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want my friend back, I thought; we talked in signs and formed a great team. Maybe I feel sick of people not understanding what this is like, but it’s not like I wish for anyone else to live through this. I stamped out Aura’s cigarette and lit another one. Hold her tight, if you have her; hold her tight, I thought, that’s my advice to all the living. Breathe her in, put your nose in her hair, breathe her in deeply. Say her name. It will always be her name. Not even death can steal it. Same alive as dead, always. Aura Estrada.

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You always felt destined for stardom of one kind or another. But the fear that maybe that wasn’t true wouldn’t leave you alone. That you were no more than the classes you’d taken, the schools you’d attended, the books you’d read, the languages you spoke, your scholarships, your master’s thesis on Borges and the English writers, and so on, but nobody unique, with a talent only your own. You were desperate for something that was yours alone. I was yours alone, but that isn’t what you meant.

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Impulsiveness: an ungovernable excess bubbling up from within.

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Maybe memory is overrated. Maybe forgetting is better. (Show me the Proust of forgetting, and I’ll read him tomorrow.) Sometimes it’s like juggling

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hundred thousand crystal balls in the air all at once, trying to keep all these memories going. Every time one falls to the floor and shatters into dust, another crevice cracks open inside me, through which another chunk of who we were disappears forever. I wouldn’t sell that tube of sticks for a thousand dollars.

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“As a wave ages, it gradually grows higher, longer and consequently faster.” Where was Aura’s wave that night, as we slept in our bunks in the hostel in Oaxaca? Was it already a murderous old wave, or still a relatively young one,

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born only the night before in a tropical storm maybe only a thousand miles out to sea? There’s a Borges poem that ends with the lines: ¿Quién es el mar, quién soy? Lo sabré el día Ulterior que sucede a la agonía. Who is the sea, who am I? I’ll know the day that follows after the agony—agonía, in this context, could be even more accurately translated as “death throes.” Am I the wave?

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Inconsolable doesn’t mean that you are sometimes consolable. The way things are has seemed right to me; it’s all been as it should be, or as if it could not be any other way. I even feel grateful for some of the appalling things that have been said to me—Why can’t you go back to being the way you were before you met Aura?—because they starkly demarcate a border, showing you a truth about where you are now, whereas a supposedly sensitive comment might only soften that border a little, but never make it less impenetrable. You have to, can only, live this on your own.

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Aura said, I don’t want to die. She said, There’s so much I want to do. No quiero morir

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really don’t have much time left, I thought. It’ll all be over in a blink. I thought of Juanita and Leopoldo and their hatred of me, and their determination to erase from Aura’s history our love and marriage. In a way, I thought, it’s as if they took those windows down and instead of putting them away and keeping them safe, they stole and hid them. These words came to me: Your hatred can save me. Your hatred can even free me. Because it leaves behind an emptiness that I have an obligation to fill in for Aura and me. Those are the words that came to me in that church.

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