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    I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation
    Unavailable
    I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation
    Unavailable
    I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation
    Audiobook10 hours

    I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation

    Written by Courtney Maum

    Narrated by Sam Devereaux

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Despite the success of his first solo show in Paris and the support of his brilliant French wife and young daughter, thirty-four-year-old British artist Richard Haddon is too busy mourning the loss of his American mistress to appreciate his fortune. But after Richard discovers that a painting he originally made for his wife, Anne, has sold, it shocks him back to reality and he resolves to reinvest wholeheartedly in his family life…just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he’s still the man she once loved.

    Editor's Note

    Humorous & irreverent…

    A full-fledged valentine to the age-old establishment of marriage, complete with a male anti-hero who has an affair and bumbles—quite pitifully—through his attempts to make amends.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateJun 24, 2014
    ISBN9781629238630
    Unavailable
    I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation
    Author

    Courtney Maum

    Courtney Maum is the author of Touch (a New York Time editor's choice and NPR's Best of 2017), as well as the acclaimed I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You. Her book reviews, essays and articles about the writing life have been widely published in outlets such as The New York Times, O the Oprah Magazine, BuzzFeed, Interview Magazine and Electric Literature.

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    Reviews for I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

    3.5/5

    121 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I don't set out to read all the books about terrible unlikable men, it just seems like there are so many of them to find. Maum's characters, the husband and the wife, don't want to end their marriage, but they struggle to find reasons that it shouldn't end. They fight hard towards each other and towards better versions of themselves. But some fights you just can't win.
    • 4/5
      "How about telling me how badly an affair would fuck up your marriage?" Was there ever a more tantalizing opening line for a go at cheating on your spouse? It's a brave author who writes in first person AND another gender, and Courtney Maum mostly succeeds in this not-chick-lit-but-lit-fic novel. It's the writing, stupid, and not the plot, which drags on a bit too long. Richard, a Brit artist, and Anne, a French attorney, meet in Providence RI and marry quickly, with a fine and active sex life and a sweet daughter. But routine sets in and in 7th year stretch, Richard succumbs to Lisa, an American wench who picks him up in a Paris museum. When Lisa breaks it off and Anne finds out about the affair, Richard realizes that he wants his wife back and back to where they were before. Possible? Maybe. Richard's internal thoughts are selfish and his parents and in-laws both confront him with his stupidity. Does he wise up? This is worth a read because it's implausibly romantic and very well written.
    • 3/5
      This is an entertaining book that nails the high and low points of marriage, the mind-numbing sameness of days, the silly arguments that turn into raging battles and the unexpected joys that bond us with another person. Protagonist Richard Haddon, fresh off an affair, is at once frustrating and endearing, and his his sophisticated wife is equally engaging. Both struggle with pain that is, at points, palpable.Author Courtney Maum nails the subtleties that bind us together and pull us apart, skewering various aspects of society along the way. It's a painful, amusing, endearing ride down the tough road of mending fences with the person you love most.I received an advanced readers edition of the book from the publisher, and have already passed it along.
    • 4/5
      Very slow in the beginning but a nice ending.
    • 5/5
      I LOVED this---listening to the audio I just couldn't wait to get back to listen to more of Richard's self-caused troubles. Sam Devereaux is a terrific reader! You just plain WANT Richard to succeed but there are so many things that keep stepping in the way of his getting back to his wife, Anne. I'm not quite sure I understand the title---I was thinking that perhaps The Blue Bear would have been a better possibility---but equally confusing unless you've read the book! Really a delightful telling of the story. And....this is all so wonderfully current ---I could easily remember so many of the things that were happening.
    • 1/5
      Did not capture my interest. I skimmed through and am glad that I didn't waste my precious reading time.
    • 2/5
      A thoroughly depressing book. Very realistic depiction of the main character, so much so that it was hard to root for him. And the title had nothing at all to do with the book!
    • 4/5
      Gut-wrenching and beautifully written, this book plumbs the depths of marriage, infidelity, and the stupid things we do to one another in the name of love.
    • 5/5
      What a happy surprise. I didn't associate with many of the other reviewer's comments. To me, this book was not particularly humorous, and it was certainly not a precious or sexy love story. Rather, it was about real marriage and the nitty gritty of day to day living with another person in a relationship. I found it to be compelling and realist. The other pieces of the story- an artist who is looking to find his expression, a lovely setting,Paris, and the portraits of genuine loving marriages- all complete the book. I have a hard time understanding some of the criticisms. Perhaps it is best appreciated by the people who have already discarded the notion of perfection in romance and marriage and have struggled through the highs and lows. Whatever the particulars, I found this book to be distinctly special and one of the best books I have read lately.
    • 5/5
      incredible and full of an indescribable, rich pathos. dive in
    • 5/5
      A great how-to-recover-from-an-affair-and-restore-your-marriage from a European point-of-view told with great insight and humor. Looking forward to reading Maum's second novel...or seeing this book turned into a romantic comedy.
    • 4/5
      Very nice story about love and mistakes. I recommend. nice narrator also.
    • 2/5
      ok, just not my thing.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars Richard is an artist and has been cheating on his wife for seven months, when his mistress decides to leave him and marry someone else. He is devastated. Meanwhile, when his wife finds out, Richard decides he doesn't want to lose her, either, so he tries to win her back. I didn't think, at first, that I'd like the book, because I hated Richard so much right away. However, the book got more interesting as it went along, and I was amazed to find myself, later in the book, sort of rooting for the guy. Maybe that's because it was from his point of view? Or did the author write it that well? Or both? I don't know why, but in the end, I'd rate it a “good” book.
    • 4/5
      This audio book is read impeccably by the reader, Sam Devereaux. He sounded almost supernatural, at times. His voice was resonant and mellow. Reading in a dreamy, quiet, almost mournful, matter-of-fact tone (but there are lighter moments of jest also), he was able to convey the exact temperament of Richard Haddon and imprint his character upon the reader’s memory. Richard, an artist, seems to be a man in the depths of despair. His wife, Anne-Laure, has discovered his infidelity and cannot forgive him. She has read the love letters revealing his unfaithfulness, and she can no longer trust him. She is angry, humiliated and ashamed. It is hard to know if Richard is really remorseful, or if he is merely desperate and lonely. We know he wants to be forgiven. They have a child, Camille, and he cannot bear the thought of losing that life he shared with them, yet, he betrayed them, and might have done worse had Lisa Bishop, his lover, not dumped him first. The story evolves as Richard tries to make amends for his stupidity, hoping to return to his former life.I found three themes in the story. The first concerns a painting called, Blue Bear, a painting Richard made when his wife was pregnant. It symbolized the conflict of his fear and joy at the birth of his first child. It is a secret feeling they both shared and understood about the painting’s meaning. The second concerns his desire to make a strong political statement which he hopes will bring his wife back to their marriage bed. He hopes she will be proud of him and forgive him, hopes she will realize he was really a good person, and he loved her. He had just made a terrible mistake. The third is Richard’s film “Witness”, a kind of documentary in which he interviews his parents and their friends in an attempt to discover what keeps their love alive, what do they like and dislike about each other, and what is wrong with his own emotional needs and bonds. Through these introspective interviews and family conversations, secrets are revealed. The art project, which will make a political statement that will bring him notice and hopefully expiate his crime, encouraging his wife to forgive him, is the culmination of those three underlying issues the book explores. Richard uses President Bush and his policies toward Iraq as the vehicle to fuel his need to create a performance art project which he calls War Wash. His art sponsor hates George Bush, so they are a perfect team. Once again, an author has taken the opportunity to use the bully pulpit to bash George Bush and the conservatives in order to promote a personal liberal bent. It is getting to be a pretty nasty habit. Why didn’t she instead create something about the bombing of the aspirin factory by Bill Clinton and the murder conspiracy surrounding Princess Diana? That could have been a large statement about women’s rights and the abuse they are made to suffer by men and would have fit into his transgression, his original sin, very neatly. Instead he used his dislike for Tony Blair as well, because he sided with America in the effort to find Weapons of Mass Destruction which were never found. In addition, the art exhibitor who sponsored his project just happened to be Middle Eastern, so the project took on more than a political tone, it also seemed a bit biased toward one culture. I believe that while Richard’s behavior was totally selfish and self-serving, President Bush’s behavior was meant to be altruistic, to rid the world of a tyrant, to stop the genocide in Iraq. I do not believe that the President acted in his own self-interest as Richard and Azar, his art sponsor, may well have.Richard was brought up in England, spent time in the United States, but was living in Paris now, and he was happy that his adopted country, France, remained out of the fray. His “living” creation featured Britain and America and symbolized the sins of both countries and also those of individuals, as well, who wanted to wash their failures and wrongdoings out of life. The public made donations to be used in the live creation of the project. The detritus of life, the failed dreams, the mistakes and the disappointments, were all tossed into, and featured in, the final creation which was then tossed and washed in a machine filled with gasoline, not water. The symbolism was huge and explosive. Richard, too, is hoping for a regime change so he can return home, to his former life, and he was willing to do something outside the box to regain his dignity and his life.In an effort to be kind and not be enraged because I am once again being force fed political beliefs I may or may not agree with, in a book which is masquerading as a novel but may well be a political treatise, I decided that he used the project as a metaphor for the breakup of his marriage. Both the war and his affair were doomed to failure, he believed, both were futile attempts to attain personal gain, but in reality could only cause ultimate pain. He came to believe that his behavior and that of America and Britain, were acts of stupidity. Therefore, perhaps it was not as politically heavy-handed as I originally thought. I think Richard believed that the war was completely unjust and damaging for the world, and what he did to his family was equally unjust and damaging to his private world. Both acts were enormously destructive to an established way of life. He declared war on his marriage and Bush declared war on Iraq. Both may or may not have been misguided attempts to gain recognition; your beliefs will, depend upon your own moral, ethical and political beliefs, as well as your own personal commission of sins. The narrative is exquisitely lyrical at times, but sometimes that mood was broken by the insertion of some crude and ugly language that referenced sex, body parts and/or bodily functions. I am not sure what the author’s intention was at those times, but it made what would have been a beautifully written, more serious novel, more of a beach read. In addition, the ending was too predictable and too much like a fairy tale.