KIRKUS REVIEW
A debut memoir tells how a woman put her marriage back together after her husband’s infidelity.
KIRKUS REVIEW
One day, while waiting for her husband to get home from a business trip, musician Kane discovered mysterious hotel charges on his monthly credit card statement. Adam, who had been increasingly distant since his sister’s death a few years earlier, quickly admitted to an affair with a stripper, though he assured Kane that it had ended. Both Kane and Adam wanted to save their 24-year marriage, but the next six months of therapy went horribly awry. It turned out that Adam hadn’t been fully honest with Kane, and she was forced to play the role of detective in order to get to the truth of what her husband was up to. In between sections recounting this period of problems with Adam, the author includes chapters that delve into her own past: her family, her discovery of music, her past relationships, and her long marriage. It turned out that therapy alone wasn’t enough to help Kane get past her lifetime of baggage to work out her marriage. Unexpectedly, she found the missing ingredient in Kundalini yoga. The effects of the practice on an otherwise fairly mainstream American couple are surprising, to say the least. “It’s not common for people whose marriages survive to reveal the ways they kept their marriage together,” the author writes in the book’s preface. “Instead of keeping my story mysteriously locked away, it might bring a little more happiness into the world unfolding in front of you.” Kane’s prose is warm and full of self-deprecating humor. This deeply confessional work exposes her as a flawed but highly sympathetic figure laying bare both her life’s joys and indignities. The audience may not agree with her decision to stay with her husband—Adam does not come off well, though Kane’s treatment of him is always empathetic—but that makes, perhaps, for a more enlightening reading experience. It’s a strange story, but a very human one. A tie-in music album by the author is available as well.
A vulnerable and illuminating account of a wife attempting to save her marriage.