Take my ex-husband, please--but not too far

Description

A lifelong love story with a thoroughly modern twist, *Take My Ex-Husband, Please—But Not Too Far* is domestic misadventure at it's best, filled with humor, joy, heartbreak, and warmth, and told through fifty years of letters and diary entries. In 1939, eighteen-year-old Barbara Beyer drops out of Smith College to marry Ed Malley. Soon they are the typical all-American family, living in a rambling house with four mischievous children, a revolving door of in-laws, a menagerie of pets, and no differences that couldn't be settled by the Supreme Court. But life in the Malley clan involves much more than household drama. The irrepressible Ed and his hobbies of flying and boating lead them into dilemmas (including crashing and sinking) that, through Barbara's captivating candor and wit, are transformed in the retelling from disastrous to delightful. Then, after thirty years of marriage, Barbara discovers there is another woman. Amazingly, this results in one of the happiest divorces ever, as Barbara relishes her new-found independence, while Ed finds Barbara has become not only his best friend but his best matchmaker. For the next fifteen years the Malleys date others, date each other, and even double-date together. Barbara, happy with her freedom and determined to see Ed equally happy, escorts him to singles parties, places personal ads for him, and finally steers him to the woman he ends up marrying, stating, "Any ex-wife would say the same thing I did when I first sampled his girlfriend's apple strudel: Ed, you've gotta keep this treasure in the family!" Every word of this charming, disarming story of the love and lifelong friendship between Ed and Barbara Malley is true. Barbara Malley is a gifted writer who does the extraordinary with the ordinary, and her story of courtship, marriage, divorce, courtship again, and enduring love is raucous, poignant, warm, and winning. Not since *Please Don't Eat the Daisies* and *The Egg and I* has a story of family life been so enjoyable or universal in its appeal.

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