Transcript: Harrison Scott Key

My interview with the author of How to Stay Married

This past summer was the summer of the divorce memoir. Books glamorizing marital breakdown were everywhere, depicting the act of walking away from a marriage as radical self-empowerment. But I could not find a single memoir about the opposite perspective: staying and working things out and rediscovering love. My guest on this week’s program has written the book I’ve been wanting to read, and he’s here to tell us how a dead marriage can live again.

Harrison Scott Key is an American writer. His latest book is How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told.

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the interview for free here.

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TH: You have been married for more than 20 years, and you have said that staying married is one of the hardest things you have ever done. I cover a lot of books on this podcast, and this summer I covered the trend in divorce memoirs. There are so many of them. But I couldn't find a single memoir about staying married — until browsing in Octavia Books in New Orleans. I picked up yours, and it was a relief to read. You have said in your TED Talk that you and your wife wanted the world to know that a dead marriage can live again. Tell me about the impulse to write a humor memoir about your almost-divorce.

HSK: The humour piece I'll address first: I am afflicted with a disease that makes me want to write funny. The world is very funny to me and rather absurd. It's funny in its sadness and it's grief and it's terror. And it's funny in lighter ways too. There are plenty of topics that don't lend themselves to comedy very easily. But it's like what Mel Brooks said, “tragedy plus time equals comedy.” Everything is funny to somebody, eventually. I remember one comedian saying, “Can we make jokes about Lincoln's assassination yet? Is that okay?” Or John F. Kennedy's assassination. Those would not have been funny jokes a long time ago, but people can do that now. So that's just a caveat to say that infidelity and divorce and the nightmare hell that most marriages eventually end up, at some point, or at multiple points … Anything I write, I want it to have a little comedy magic in there, just because that's how I see the world. So, there was no real intent to write a funny book about marriage. It was just going to be a book by me, about marriage, that was going to be funny — or at least attempt to be funny — just because that's how I see the world. But it's a fair question.

The question of “Do we publish this book? Do we tell this story?” was not an easy one. It took a long time. It took about a year to figure out if we should write this book or not. I've been writing about my life in a very David Sedaris way for 20 years. I write about what happens to me in my life. Good things have happened to me, and bad things have happened, and I've written about them all. Even when I'm writing about the sad stuff, the heavy stuff, I'm still writing it with, I won't say a sense of humour, but a sense of the absurd and the ridiculous. If anybody listening is wondering why you would write a funny book about really terrible things, like finding out your wife is in love with your neighbour and wants to marry him and divorce you — when you find yourself talking to people about what has happened to you, you find yourself invariably laughing about it.

Just a quick example. When this book came out, probably about once a day — it used to happen about once an hour — I would get a message from a stranger telling me about their marriage and saying that they need help. And can I call them or message them? I'm like, “I really cannot call you, buddy. I don't know you. You need a therapist.” But I appreciate their questions, and I do try to engage with them in a limited way. I'm not a therapist. But a friend of mine who lives nearby — not like our neighbour or anything, but she lives close, and I've known her for a couple years — she messaged me. She basically said, “This terrible thing has happened in my marriage. Can we talk?” And she said, “I've talked to several people, and they say I should reach out to you.” So, I said, “Sure, call me whenever.”

As soon as we started talking, she was telling me the story of the nightmare that happened in her marriage recently. And she was making jokes about it! Because it's such a terrifying subject. To find out, in my case, that your wife is in love with your doofus neighbour — you can't not laugh about it, because you feel so humiliated. You feel so shocked, and your entire world is upside down. So, it lends itself very well to absurdity and pointing out the ridiculousness. The heart of comedy is vulnerability, and saying out loud maybe what other people aren't saying. If you have never experienced anything like this book in your life, then you will be confused why it's funny. But everybody I have talked to who has had something like this happen to them, they are like, “Man, I got the comedy. It was so healing. I really appreciated it.”

The short version of how this book came to be is because this thing happened to me. I felt very compelled to write the story. I was already telling people. Because, as I say in the book, my pastor, who is a good friend of mine, another good buddy who I'm in a band with who is a therapist, another good buddy who is a teacher at a school in town — I was telling them the story as it was happening. And it was very cathartic. I felt less crazy when I told the story.

When Lauren and I reconciled — and there's no spoilers, that's in the book too — when we reconciled, she started telling people. She would go to dinner with friends and be like, “I have got to tell you something that I've been needing to tell you for a while.” So, she would have these eight-hour dinners telling her whole life story — basically her chapter that's in the book, some version of that. We both realized that clearly people were benefiting from hearing our story. They were moved by it. We were benefiting telling the story. And as a writer, I naturally was like, “Maybe this is a book.” I told my agent before I told my wife. I was like, “I think I might write about Lauren leaving me.” Lauren had not moved back in yet. She said, “What if she comes back?” I was like, “Then it will have a happy ending.” She said, “What if she doesn't come back?” I was like, “Then it'll still have a happy ending — maybe.”

Then, when Lauren and I reconciled, I was like, “Hey, I've really been thinking about turning this whole crazy story into a book.” And she was like, “Hell no. Absolutely not.” She's like, “Why can’t you write about the dog? People love books about dogs.” And I knew several things. It was still very tender for her. It was very tender for me. She's also very much an introvert. She's not a writer primarily, although she writes beautifully, and her chapter is probably my favorite chapter in the book. But I knew it was going to be hard for her. And so, I said, “Okay, that's fine. I won't bring it up again.” And then, I went and wrote the book. She knew I was writing it. I was like, “We don't have to talk about it.” I was like, “I'm just going to write this and when I'm finished with it, I'm going to show it to you. And if you don't like anything about it, we'll burn it. Nobody will ever see this book.”

It took me about a year to write the book. I wrote it very fast. Normally it takes me a lot longer to write a book. I just flew through it. I was writing, and it was so cathartic. But it was also very painful to relive some of those memories that I was processing. Most of it was processing things that had happened years ago, but a lot of it was processing things that had happened only a year ago. But that made it very fresh and the writing was very intense. When I finished it, I gave it to Lauren and I was like, “Look, nobody will ever read this book if you don't like it.” She read it in two days and I was so nervous. Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. I thought she was going to hate it.

She came back, and she wasn't jumping for joy or anything. She said she was shocked. I asked her what she was shocked about. She goes, “I did not realize how much you loved me until I read this.” I was like, “That's sweet. I've been telling you for years. But I appreciate you saying that.” She goes, “I also did not think it was going to be funny. I thought you were going to be really mad in this book, or sad, or both.” I was like, “Well, I'm definitely mad and sad in the book, but it is funny. I hope it is.” Then she said, “Can I write something for it too?” Then she wrote her chapter, and it was a lot. Even when we wrote the book and we gave it to my editor, it was still very, like, “What are they going to think? Are they going to hate us? Are they going to feel weird that we're writing this book?”

Writing the book was a very private thing. It was me, and then I gave it to my wife, and I was very frightened to give it to her to read. Then she said she understood that theoretically this was a good book to have in the world. She just didn't want to be wearing a scarlet letter for the rest of her life. But all the people who mattered most to us already knew what happened. She and I had to take a “we don't really care if the world hates us for writing this book” approach, because all the people who matter most to us have encouraged us to tell this story — and to share this story. They have said that this story has helped them with their own stories.

But of course, it was still awkward. I mean, we had to talk to our girls, like, “You're going to see me put the cover for the new book on my Instagram. That's going to take you to the Amazon page, and you're going to see a description of this terrible thing that happened to your mom and me — that you guys saw with your own eyes. So, we just want to talk to you and prepare you for that.” It was a very slow process. I would do readings and we did not invite our girls to come to any of the public events. They would often come with us to the events for my previous books. But we didn't want to make it awkward for them. So, they haven't been a part of that. They know that the book is out there, but it's still hard.

When I did my TED Talk about the book, my wife was in the audience, and she was sitting next to my mom, who lives right down the street from us. And I'm talking about all this; that's awkward. No matter how prepared you are to share and be vulnerable with the world, it's still very awkward. We've gotten used to it. The book has been out for about a year and a half now. People will come up to me if Lauren is with me, and they are like, “Oh my gosh, I really loved your book.” And then they will realize it feels awkward. They are saying this about us! It's still weird, and we've had to get used to it.

I don't think Lauren regrets the book coming out. I definitely don't regret it. But promoting it and talking about it — this interview not withstanding — has been hard and weird and awkward. She's done some interviews with me. But typically, I write these funny, ridiculous books about my life. And those can be really fun to promote. People are laughing when they are interviewing you and it's all fun. This one has not been like that. That's been a new experience for me.

TH: I really appreciate both you and Lauren's willingness to go there. I think it's important to have these examples in the public square about what marriage looks like over the long term, the challenges, the way that you overcome them. You have described the book as a murder mystery: Who killed the marriage? So much of our divorce narrative in the culture is about the offending partner. And then it becomes a narrative of self-actualization and self-empowerment and self-care. You said in your TED Talk that you actually needed to learn to love yourself a little less and love others more. In the book, you reflect on your own character flaws at length, and you dive into the immense pressure that you felt as a man to provide for your family, to build an ambitious career. What role did that overwork play in the fracturing the marriage?

HSK: I definitely cheated on my wife with my career. And unfortunately, that's not an odd thing to happen. There are so many people — men and women — who have that struggle in their own relationships. As a writer, I love to write. I love to write, I love to read. I love to re-read what I've written and make it better. It's my drug. It's my hobby. It's very all-consuming. And I'm sure I could write a whole other book about why that is. We don't have to get into it. It's just something that I love deeply, and I love doing it. I wish for everybody listening that you all have something that you have loved so much, especially if it can provide for your family, and give you a little bit of security, and some creative satisfaction. I mean, I just love work.

The same goes for my job at the university. I love working with other people, and the teaching, and all the things that I do. But what happened was when our marriage was less than fun — and every marriage will go through non-fun seasons — sometimes when kids are really little and you're just struggling to keep them fed and clothed and bathed and on the sleep schedule, that can be really hard for couples. There are a lot of seasons that we've gone through that have been hard, and there are a lot of seasons that have been easy. But when things are hard at home, I found it so much easier to fall in love with work a little more. Because that meant I could stay gone from home just a little while longer. There were many times where I lied to my wife when our girls were very little.

We have three daughters. They are in high school and college now. But when they were very little, I would be working — let's say I normally would get off around 5:30 at night. And let's say it was 5:35 and I knew I could go home, and I could help with the kids and help with dinner. But I also knew if I stayed for an extra hour, I could get some really important work done for the next day, get ahead a little bit. Which might get me the raise, which might get us the extra money we need to send our girls to a nice school or a better summer camp.

It also would mean staying away from home for an extra hour while the worst, least fun parts of family life were all happening at home. Kids screaming and throwing their food on the floor. There were just so many moments like that where I told Lauren, “I really need to stay here at work and finish this up.” When, looking back, I didn't really need to. I wanted to. And I was too selfish or lacked the tools to be able to explain to her that I wanted to. So yeah, it's a paradox because that ambition and that devotion to work has given us a financial security that neither she nor I had growing up. So, we love that. We love it. But I have also learned to be wise and to really be honest with myself: Do I really need to work an extra hour now?

I now know how hard those moments were for Lauren when I came home late. I didn't know how hard they were for her. I now know that they are hard. So, she depends on me to be home by a certain time. Because even though our girls are older now — they can feed and bathe themselves — there is still a lot to do to keep a house running: keeping it clean and doing the dishes, preparing dinner. We love to cook. We love to eat. I cooked dinner last night and I'm cooking dinner tonight. It's really good to be the one cooking dinner, because I'm not going to dilly-dally at work. As soon as work is over, I'm going to go home. I'm going to be there and actually enjoy being there. I enjoy being home now. I didn't always enjoy being home. So, work saved us, and work killed us at the same time.

TH: I want to dig a little bit into the plot. Lauren does come to you in the book and tells you that she is in love with the neighbour. I want to read a passage from the book that really stood out to me: “I come from a long line of men who love to be out in the world — hunting, fishing, killing, running, hitting, scoring, farming, plowing, milking — and who love to be at home with their people even more, telling stories, eating meals, sitting on porches. I have inherited that love of domestic life. It is not something I merely love, it defines my very existence. And now I stood to lose it all.” You could have gone out and gotten drunk, or found another woman, or gotten violent with the man that Lauren was seeing. But instead you sat with the pain and the terror of losing all that you loved. How did you manage that?