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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Susan Shapiro's new memoir describes how she reconnected with five former flames -- and saved her marriage in the process.
Feb 11, 2004 | Do you ever have the urge to sit down with an ex and ask them exactly what went wrong? Me neither. But writer Susan Shapiro did just that, with all five of the ones who got away. And as she describes it in her new memoir, "Five Men Who Broke My Heart," this apparent suicide mission wound up saving her marriage.
What, you may ask, was she thinking? Was "High Fidelity" that inspiring? Well, Shapiro did not hatch the plot out of nowhere; rather, she was launched into it by the explosive fusion of coincidence and chutzpah. One day she got a surprise call from her über-ex, "Brad" (all names are changed), a Harvard scientist who wanted to talk P.R. for his new book. "Why did he get to publish a book?" Shapiro writes. "I didn't invade his space by curing cancer." Brad's timing was both crappy and perfect: Shapiro, having just hit 40, was sweating out her "no-book-no-baby summer," fielding -- on the very day of the Brad call -- bad news from both gynecologist and literary agent. Her husband's sperm count was low and her novel had been rejected by several publishers. To top things off, Shapiro's TV-writer husband ("Aaron") had become emotionally and literally distant, heading off to work in Asia for weeks at a time.
So Shapiro sees Brad. Then she winds up lecturing at the college where George teaches. Then Tom calls. At that point, how could she not track down the other two? "Locating my lost loves was a way to hide out in my history. It was simpler than facing the future with a husband who wouldn't be the father of my children," she writes. (Her dalliances, if charged, never became physical.) Only her first love, David, winds up -- after initial goodwill -- flipping out and declining an in-person exit interview. "I didn't give you what you wanted 24 years ago, why would I do it now?" he writes in an e-mail. "Forget the reunion. I would rather take out my own appendix with a bottle of Jack and a dull spoon." And, later: "Come on girl. Let it go. It's time."
And that, ultimately, is exactly what Shapiro does. By reconnecting with the big five, she is able to both praise and bury them ("I had successfully declawed my past," she concludes), to let herself off the hook for "what went wrong," and to begin to realize, gradually and plausibly, that her imperfect husband is perfect for her.
I have to admit I was irritated by Shapiro's frequent quoting of her therapist ("Dr. G. says ...") -- a backhanded compliment, because the writer's observations are sound enough that she doesn't have to cite her psycho-sources; I also maintain that ideally, "closure" is achieved unilaterally, without information or permission from one's ex. Still, "Five Men Who Broke My Heart" is a witty, canny, ballsy reminder that our past relationships are part of our lives, period, not just the parts that didn't work.
I recently spoke with Shapiro about the experience of writing the book, revisiting the past, and having a husband who puts up with such things.
We all carry torches -- lit with toxic gas though they may be -- for our exes. We romanticize them, demonize them, wonder what they're up to. Did these five guys live up to your memories of them?
I was pleasantly shocked at how interesting they all still were to me. I feel like I had good taste. There was no one who made me think, What did I ever see in him? Even at 14, when I met David, I had good taste. They were intelligent and interesting and looked good, and I thought that was great.
That was part of what I wanted to do with the book. I had this fantasy in my head of why each relationship had broken up -- but what I found in each case, through each "exit interview," was that I was able to pinpoint where I had screwed up. So instead of them being the cads and me playing the victim, I saw that I was simply not ready to get married until I was 35 -- and probably not even then. It was about timing, not about their weaknesses or imperfections; it was about me needing a lot of years to figure out who I was and get my career together. What I realized in retrospect was that I would not have been happy with anyone until I'd figured out on my own how to make a living and take care of myself. I was going into my relationships with this big expectation that "this man is going to take care of me and make me happy and make my life work" ... but that has to fail. That can't sustain itself, that expecting someone else to do your life for you.
How did your husband react to this project?
He was kind of oblivious. He was working on three shows at a time and in Asia, Chicago, Los Angeles -- he was in a different time zone in about 20 ways. He basically wasn't around enough to stop me. He did make some mean sarcastic comments, but he always made mean sarcastic comments. He hates it when I write about him; when I started the book I thought, This is cool, I can write about the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll in my past and avoid writing about my marriage. In early drafts he just had a cameo role -- he was just this sarcastic muttering husband in the background. But my writing group said that without his character, "You're just this lonely pathetic woman, stalker of men you used to date. Having a husband you love is much more interesting and dramatic." I realized that the book I was writing in order to not write about my husband needed him as the hero. Then I was afraid he'd divorce me when he read it. I didn't show [the manuscript] to him until after I sold it -- because otherwise why make trouble? The day I handed it to him I said, "Tell me what I'm going to have to change." He came back and said, "Just make Aaron's penis bigger."
