Brief Book Reviews: April 2025

BRIEF BOOK REVIEWS

Popular Books Relevant to Mental Health

How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told

Harrison Scott Key; Simon & Schuster, 2023

320 pages; $13 (paperback)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

This is not a self-help book (thank goodness). Rather it is the story of the author’s discovery of his wife’s affair and his struggle to win her back. With humor and humility, he tells of his shock, rage, and fantasies of vengeance—which he envisions broadcast on a Dateline Exclusive. The story is filled with unusual self-reflection and shame, as the author awakens to the void he created when he fell in love with his career. In her loneliness, she fell for the neighbor. The sorrow would be overwhelming were it not for the humor.

The author grew up believing “therapy was for weak people on TV with disposable income,” but after attempting to work with a few unhelpful clinicians, he and his wife found a secular therapist who was able to bring forth the hurt and anger which enabled them to start healing the wounds. One of the more remarkable features of the book is the chapter, near the end, written by his wife, Lauren Key. Seldom in a memoir do we hear the perspective from the other party.

A central part of the story is the author’s conflicted relationship with his religious beliefs. He was raised by God-fearing, Bible-thumping parents in rural Mississippi. Yet, as a teen he laughed at the “science fiction” which he describes as turning water into wine, “rods morphing into serpents,” and “dead men rising up and walking around at cocktail parties.”

However, he found solace with a little start-up church and its congregation of similarly broken souls. The support, love, and casserole dinners nourish his psyche and metabolism. The author remains unsure if God is real or a myth, but during the recovery, no one preached at them, nor hoped his unfaithful wife would burn in hell. The fellowship of his spiritual community was endearing and therapeutic—a topic not often addressed in psychiatric recovery.

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

Esther Perel; Yellow Kite, 2017

336 pages; $16 (paperback)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Affairs are as old as marriage. The sin of infidelity is so onerous it receives 2 commandments in the Bible—one for doing it and one for thinking about it “universally forbidden, yet universally practiced.” Esther Perel is a Master’s level psychotherapist with 30 years’ experience in family systems therapy. She is a leading authority in treating and understanding the path of desire “when it goes looking elsewhere.” This is not a scientific study of infidelity nor does it have the arc of a story. It is a series of nonjudgmental cases, imbedded in chapters addressing modern insights into the “erotic mystique,” as well as the devastation and trauma of marital affairs.

By examining “illicit love,” the author provides a window into our own relationships. Everyone in a committed relationship struggles with the conflicting desires for stability and excitement. She hopes the book will stimulate conversations about issues such as “fidelity and loyalty, desire and longing, jealousy and possessiveness, truth-telling and forgiveness.” She does not gloss over the eviscerating effects an affair has on a couple, but she advises them to separate the feelings from immediate decisions about the future of the relationship. Sound advice for any of us seeing a patient who is reeling from the sudden discovery of a partner’s secret life.

Dr Higgins is an affiliate associate professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.