FICTION

I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

Touchstone. Jun. 2014. 352p. ISBN 9781476764580. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781476764566. F
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After landing his first Parisian show, British artist Richard Haddon should be celebrating with his beautiful wife, Anne, and their seven-year-old daughter, Camille. Instead, he's feeling like a sellout. Anne has just discovered that Richard had been having an affair and is insisting he end it. Worse—the seven-month fling is already over, because Richard's lover dumped him. Then Richard agrees to sell The Blue Bear, a painting he created for Anne at the beginning of their marriage. Belatedly, he realizes how much the art, and the woman he created it for, mean to him. Richard sets plans in motion to get the painting back and regain the respect of his wife. There are a few comic scenes (the gay couple who purchase The Blue Bear are vegan, kombucha-swilling "pagan continuists"), but overall the novel comes across as a fairly realistic portrayal of a modern marriage that has lost its way.
VERDICT Debut author Maum carefully paints Richard and Anne's relationship, from its heady start, to Richard's infidelity, to his shaky attempts to repair the damage he has done. A solid, well-written character-driven contemporary novel.
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