Rachel Cusk meets Nora Ephron in this intimate and evolving portrait about the end of a marriage and how life can fall apart and be rebuilt in wonderful and surprising ways.
One minute Elizabeth Crane and her husband of fifteen years are fixing up their old house in Upstate New York, finally setting down roots after stints in Chicago, Texas, and Brooklyn, when his unexpected admission—I’m not happy—changes everything. Suddenly she finds herself separated and in couples therapy, living in an apartment in the city with an old friend and his kid. It’s understood that the apartment and bonus family are temporary, but the situation brings unexpected comfort and much-needed healing for wounds even older than her marriage.
Crafting the story as the very events chronicled are unfolding, Crane writes from a place of guarded possibility, capturing through vignettes and collected moments a semblance of the real-time practice of healing. At turns funny and dark, with moments of poignancy, This Story Will Change is an unexpected and moving portrait of a woman in transformation, a chronicle of how even the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are bound to change.
This Story Will Not Be a Fairy Tale
Punks Would Punch You in the Face
Answers to the Question What Are You Thinking About
This Story Will Be a True Story
They Watched a Show Called Divorce on the L-Shaped Sofa
Should They Just Have Gone Ahead and Gotten One of Those Long-Ass Dining Room Tables Too?
This Story Will Not Be the Entire Story
She Did Not Hate Living in Brooklyn
Doesn’t This All Seem Pretty Common and Not Unusual or Even Awful at All in a Long-Term Marriage?
The Story Will Not Be the Whole Story
While We’re Here: Ten Scenarios That Might Have Been Preferable
Let’s Talk About the Kid Again
On the Eve of the Shitty Anniversary