Author's memoir gets national attention

Laura Munson wrote her heart out for 20 years before anyone really noticed.

She penned entire books of fiction, 14 to be exact, and came oh so close to getting published. But it wasn’t until her marriage hit a bumpy stretch — and she wrote about it intimately — that people started paying attention.

Munson, of Whitefish, embarks on a cross-country book tour this week to promote her memoir, “This Is Not The Story You Think It Is ... A Season of Unlikely Happiness,” published by New York publishing giant G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

It was an essay drawn from her book that jump-started her claim to fame.

After Munson sent a copy of her book to her agent, nothing happened.

“Because I’m unknown, she said she didn’t want to shop it around until I had a name for myself,” Munson recalled. The conundrum was how to get known before getting published.

At her agent’s suggestion, Munson drew excerpts from her book and last summer wrote an essay called “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear,” for The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column.

Suddenly, the struggling writer had an audience — and had definitely made a name for herself.

Munson’s essay became the No. 1 most-read “Modern Love” piece and got so many online readers it crashed the Times’ Web site at one point.

“Within 48 hours I had a book deal,” Munson said.

Both the essay and book described what happened after Munson’s husband of nearly two decades told her one day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy...”

It was Munson’s calm response to her husband’s surprise edict that captivated readers.

“I don’t buy it,” she told him.

Instead of begging him to stay or completely melting down herself, Munson figured out a way to give her husband the distance, the time-out so to speak, that he needed while still keeping the family intact.

The couple didn’t separate, but spent the summer being distant from one another.

“I felt it was his own crisis of self, and that my work was to get out of his way, to control what I could control, commit to nonsuffering and let go of the rest,” she said.

Four months later, her marriage was stronger than it had been in a long time. Gathered around the table for Thanksgiving dinner two years ago, Munson’s husband proclaimed: “I am thankful for my family. It’s all that matters to me. I love you all.”

“THIS IS Not The Story You Think It Is” is so named because it’s not a book about marriage, even though marriage is the entry point into the book. Ultimately, it’s about Munson’s personal journey.

“I realize that people are interested in what was going on under our roof, but my message is more about what was going on under my mind’s roof,” she said.

Because the book is so personal, and because she and her husband and two children live in a small community, Munson has guarded their identities, to the point of turning down an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s popular talk show because she wouldn’t bring her husband along for the interview.

“I wonder if anyone has said no to Oprah before?” she mused.

When ABC’s “Good Morning America” wanted to swoop in and film the family’s daily life, she said no. She went to them instead, alone.

“My husband trusts that I’m going to be careful with what I say, that I won’t demonize or vilify him,” she said. “I had rules about how much I would share, especially about my children.”

There’s a universal theme to Munson’s message that transcends the details of a marital rough patch. She implores readers to understand “that it is possible to commit to non-suffering in a time of crisis.”

Munson confides with her readers in the first paragraph of her book, explaining her sense of being “strangely serene” even though her husband left the night before and nine hours later hadn’t returned yet.

“You might think all this would find me in a place of intense pain. Panic, even. State of emergency. But I’m choosing something else. I am choosing not to suffer,” she writes as the book begins, adding, “How is this possible, you might ask.”

MAKING HERSELF the main character of the book wasn’t a stretch for Munson.

“I’m a novelist. I see myself in scenes,” she said. “I needed to be the protagonist for my own process.”

The details of Munson’s life, both past and present, are intertwined with the raw emotion of that fateful “season of unlikely happiness.” She tells about her privileged upbringing in the suburbs of Chicago and going away to a New England boarding school. She and her husband moved from Seattle to Whitefish in 1994 to give him an opportunity to run the Great Northern Brewery.

By most people’s standards the couple had achieved success — two children, a beautiful country home near Whitefish, some professional accomplishments, loving family and friends.

Even though Munson had the financial means to take a trip to Italy during that summer of uncertainty, she dismisses the notion that money can buy happiness.

“I grew up with some of the wealthiest people in the country, but no amount of money can buy happiness. It can buy comfort,” she observed, but on the other hand, “You can’t buy someone’s love for you.”

To Munson, worn mantras such as “happily ever after” and “you complete me” are myths.

As she tours America over the next two weeks for book signings from New York City to San Francisco, Munson knows exactly what she wants readers to learn from her book.

“To let go of outcome,” she stressed. “To truly live in the moment as a way of survival, not just as spiritual preference or practice. When we are living like that, we are living in freedom.”

Munson said her memoir is the book she wanted to have on the nightstand during her own ordeal but couldn’t find, so she wrote it.

“I can honestly say that even if my husband and I had split for whatever reason, I would still consider that time in my life a success because it is so powerful to live like that — being responsible for your own happiness.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com