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"  Laura Munson&amp;#039;s new memoir, This Is Not the Story You Think It Is... (Amy Einhorn Books/\u00AD Putnam), opens in June 2008 with a jangly urgency. Munson&amp;#039;s husband, her fun-loving college sweetheart and &amp;quot;partner in petty crime,&amp;quot; has started pulling away from her and their two children\u2014taking off on fishing trips without notice and crashing at his office after barroom benders.  As if talismanically touching parts of her life might help her recoup her own sassy selfhood, Munson zooms between aper\u00E7us about her girlhood around a Chicago country club and her current life as a Montana horsewoman and striving writer. (&amp;quot;The thing is, I&amp;#039;m good!&amp;quot;) When her husband tells her he doesn&amp;#039;t love her, she has a moment of clarity. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t buy it,&amp;quot; she instinctively replies, figuring his crisis has more to do with his ailing business than with her or with their relationship. More often, though\u2014having vowed to put an &amp;quot;end to suffering&amp;quot; by making sure her own happiness no longer depends on people she can&amp;#039;t control\u2014Munson struggles mightily not to rise to his ornery bait, giving him the fight she thinks might make him slip out for good.  As the summer wears on, Munson captures, with deepening poignancy and surprisingly good humor, the practical impossibility of remaining jujitsu-cool\u2014denying anger and self-doubt\u2014when her world appears to be coming apart at the seams. She worries that another woman has caught her husband&amp;#039;s eye and movingly describes the shame, &amp;quot;thick.... viscous-like infection,&amp;quot; that she feels late one night at recognizing the hubris of ever thinking she and her husband were &amp;quot;golden,&amp;quot; bound to succeed.  In such moments, when we&amp;#039;re right there in her shoes, struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel, the generosity of her uncommonly frank look at a marriage under pressure comes shining through. By the time they patch things up\u2014he grateful to Munson for giving him room to regain his footing, she apprehending that they have been &amp;quot;happy and unhappy together,&amp;quot; and that &amp;quot;it seems important to know how to do both&amp;quot;\u2014you can&amp;#039;t help thinking that he&amp;#039;s one lucky guy. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/reviews/a10953/laura-munsons-new-memoir-434961/>