I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

By: Courtney Maum

Narrated by: Sam Devereaux

Despite the success of his first solo show in Paris and the support of his brilliant French wife and young daughter, 34-year-old British artist Richard Haddon is too busy mourning the loss of his American mistress to appreciate his fortune. But after Richard discovers that a painting he originally made for his wife, Anne, has sold, it shocks him back to reality and he resolves to reinvest wholeheartedly in his family life - just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he's still the man she once loved.

©2014 Courtney Maum (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

Starred review. "An honest, staggeringly realized journey... Equally funny and touching, the novel strikes deep, presenting a sincere exploration of love and monogamy. These characters are complex, and their story reflects their confusion and desire... An impressive, smart novel." ( Publishers Weekly)

"A gem of a novel about the tangles of love, regret, and hope that might or might not hold a marriage together. Courtney Maum's deft, beguiling debut charms with its wit and glows with compassion." (Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements)

"Courtney Maum writes with such honesty and verve about how we struggle to deserve the people we love. Intensely personal and engagingly complex, I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You is a moving, complicated, big-hearted novel." (Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang)

"Antic, sexy, satirically deft, and of course funny, this novel is also, on both the personal and political levels, smart about the bottomlessness of our capacities for self-sabotage, and moving about the fierceness of our yearning to make good." (Jim Shepard, author of You Think That's Bad; and Like You'd Understand, Anyway )

"Maum's witty and insightful novel captures a lifetime of falling in and out of love. It's an investigation of marriage which often combines its utter clear-sightedness and its tremendous warmth in the very same sentence. So agile and fully realized." (Ned Beauman, author of The Teleportation Accident)

beautiful story

wonderful performance by voice actor I loved all the different accents. beautiful story of love, the story definitely hit home for me

Not feeling enlightened

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The first half was a page turner. I was sufficiently entertained.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I would develop the women characters. I would develop the lover Lisa in particular and not throw her away so easily by the stories narrarator. I would take the insights from the very end and disperse them in the second half. The installation "art" was disturbing.

What three words best describe Sam Deveraux’s voice?

Sounds Like Colin Firth, or is it Hugh Grant?

Did I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You inspire you to do anything?

It made me think, but did not make me have new thoughts.

Any additional comments?

Dialogue and the main character's thoughts tell the story. This was a useful format to stay in one man's head, albeit an annoying head.

Postmortem and resurrection of a marriage

Excuse the clichés, but it is what it is, and this is an easy, quick, mildly entertaining read, that is (IMO) harmlessly overrated. The starred reviews, and "best-of" tag lines had me going into this read anxiously waiting for the 5* fabulousness and humorous story.

Expect instead, a slow, but steady and engaging launch. Richard Haddon is a semi-successful British artist, living in Paris with his beautiful Parisian wife and daughter, in the home of their dreams. He narrates (in a voice perfectly dripping with ennui), complaining about life in general, the disillusionment of his marriage, his dissatisfaction with his career, and a sex life that had become dull. All justification for a 7 month affair with an American girl. With that foundation, Richard plummets into the depths of despair/mid-life crisis when his young lover announces she is leaving him. In an attempt to gain our sympathy for his painful state of affairs, he only becomes more detestable with every word. Maum creates layer upon layer of delicious debauchery and self-pity, with a keen eye on the realistic and uncensored thoughts of a character slowly coming to grips with his actions.

Maum skewers human behaviors with a charming British bluntness that adds an enjoyable jolt of reality (but not comedy). She turns the characters inside out and has them work their way right again. The candidly narrated journey of self discovery is what gives heart to this book...albeit a syrup-y, sentimental heart.

The clichés, predictability, pointless fillers, pretentious rote characters, by any formula, keep this from being a 5* book; the witty and smart writing, the personal evolution of the characters, and some smooth narration by Deveraux, make this an enjoyable middle grounder -- at least, in my book. Just in case: **Expect some hot sexy scenes as the narrator recalls episodes of his affair, and some explicit language peppered with F-bombs, but nothing gratuitous.

Compelling and heartfelt novel with Parisian panache

Loved this heartfelt, well written novel set in Paris which examined love, art, and human experience

Intimate

The characters were honest, and while some of the pieces fit too nicely together into a perfect puzzle. I still enjoyed the entire experience.