How to Stay Married Audiobook By Harrison Scott Key cover art

How to Stay Married

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How to Stay Married

By: Harrison Scott Key
Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key, Lauren Key
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About this listen

Harrison Scott Key, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, tells the shocking, “shot through with sharp humor” (The Washington Post), spiritually profound story of his journey through hell and back when infidelity threatens his marriage.

One gorgeous autumn day, Harrison discovers that his wife—the sweet, funny, loving mother of their three daughters, a woman “who’s spent just about every Sunday of her life in a church”—is having an affair with a family friend. This revelation propels the hysterical, heartbreaking events in How to Stay Married, casting our narrator onto “the factory floor of hell,” where his wife was now in love with a man who “wears cargo shorts, on purpose.” What will he do? Kick her out? Set fire to all her panties in the yard? Beat this man to death with a gardening implement? Ask God for help in winning her back?

Armed only with a sense of humor and a hunger for the truth, Harrison embarks on a hellish journey into his past, seeking answers to the riddles of faith and forgiveness. Through an absurd series of escalating confessions and betrayals, Harrison reckons with his failure to love his wife in the ways she needed most, resolves to fight for his family, and in a climax almost too ridiculous to be believed, finally learns that love is no joke. “A fiercely memorable account of marital devotion against all odds” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), How to Stay Married is a comic romp unlike any in contemporary literature, a wild ride through the hellscape of marriage and the mysteries of mercy.

©2023 Harrison Scott Key (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio
Biographies & Memoirs Comedy & Humor Marriage Comedy Funny Witty Heartfelt Inspiring

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Spot On!

Raw, humorous and brutally honest! Thanks for peeling back the layers of love, betrayal and forgiveness. Keep laughing thru the tears; some days it’s the only way to survive.
This book is an affirmation of my longstanding advice about marriage… The secret to a long happy marriage is, if it’s long you won’t always be happy. If you are worried only about being happy, it won’t be long! I’ve been married over 39 years and it’s been the happiest 30 years of my life.

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UN-PUTDOWNABLE

Emotional, raw, real.
Sarcastic humor and quick wit are the only way this beautiful yet tortured couple (and you, the reader) could make it through the impossible journey laid bare in this book.
Absolutely UN-PUTDOWNABLE, no matter how much Lauren would hate me using that word to describe her husband’s newest novel.
Run, don’t walk, to pick up this book.

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Humor that gives you enough air to breath so you can keep crying

This book is a gift.

It felt more like a biblical story than a modern marriage memoir. Like a story about real people, really well told, with very little left out. I love how the Bible includes all the crazy stuff, the gory stuff, the angry stuff, the redemptive stuff. Bible stories are slow and painful, and man this story is slow and painful… but in the real life sort of way where happy endings come from long obedience in the same direction, rather than overnight, nearly magical transformation.

Harrison and Lauren are the saints of this story. Not because they’ve never broken anything or hurt anyone, but because they’ve broken pretty much everything and continue to look up to bless the Lord. And then look to each other with hearts softened by the gospel, fit to love. They’re people after God’s own heart. Allowing themselves to feel all the things, to tell the truth, and to offer themselves, their marriage, their kids to the faithful hands of the living God.

This story. It’s full of all the human stuff. Love, longing, despair, loss, betrayal, hope, forgiveness, anger, fear… just so much. To have someone reveal the hearts movement through all of those feelings while life is crumbling all around made me feel less lonely.

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The most real marriage story!

What a wonderful book. I laughed, and I cried. I hope every couple that is married decides to read this. Life is hard, marriage is even harder, but God is always faithful. Great Book!

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Couldn’t Stop Reading!

I have never left a review of any kind for a product. But this book has broken my streak. Consumed it voraciously. Then got my husband hooked & we started listening together. Have shared it with folks left & right. I / we loved it so very much. A gift!

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Required reading for Christians before marriage

This is the most romantic and difficult book I have ever “read” (listened to on audiobook - which I recommend because it was impactful listening to the author recount his experiences). I have not read a more honest, relatable, and complete description of perseverance through brokenness and pain - with a good dose of humor to help the medicine go down. It should be required reading for Christians before they marry. Folks - it takes a merciful God and a supportive village to do marriage and parenting - and you’ll still bruise. But it’s worth it.

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Amazingly authentic portrait of

Both the DIFFICULTY & GOODNESS of Marriage, & of Life itself. Well worth the time to read/listen…. And then reflect and ponder and talk

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Thank you Harrison & Lauren…

…for sharing your story. Insane, hilarious, and touching.

I couldn’t stop talking about this, so much so that my wife is going to read it soon.

God bless y’all.

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Heartbreaking, yet healing

As vulnerable and honest a marriage/relationship book I’ve read. Very un-churchy, which is to say refreshing, practical and healing. Read it! It just might save your marriage…even if you don’t think it needs healing.

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The male counterpart for Anne Lamott

Hilarious.
Searing.
Insightful.
Thought provoking.
Evocative.
Emotional.
I’ll be thinking about this one for awhile.

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