The protagonist of Courtney Maum’s debut novel, I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You, is really, truly hard to like ... To be clear, Richard is not in any way an antihero. He’s not evil; he’s not terrible. He is a regular guy who has made the sort of despicable errors that regular guys make all the time ... I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You is less a study of a marriage dissolving, or even of a man dissolving, than a lament for what is damaged possibly beyond repair ... Living alone and missing his family, ­Richard flounders, and so do we. So much is ­happening, but it can be difficult to be invested when we find ourselves as unsure of Richard’s worth as he is, and perhaps a bit unsure if we care terribly whether Anne will have him back. Richard is not exactly repentant enough, or not in the right ways. He’s self-absorbed, self-­pitying and not a little whiny ... This novel is not all work and no play. Maum’s descriptions of the Paris art world are entertaining, and there is sex — real, full-on, who-put-what-where sex. Maum is funny: the kind of funny that is mean and dirty, with some good bad words thrown in. And she has a satiric eye for artsy pretension ... Fortunately, Richard’s marriage is not dead, just seriously wounded. It’s all the more enticing for that, as Maum asks whether a broken marriage can be put together again, whether mistakes can be forgiven, whether redemption is finally possible for Richard, even if we never ­really cared for the guy in the first place.

Maum has not reinvented the centuries-old marriage plot that’s the cornerstone of both real and fictional societies. Her novel, though, does explore something new, and perhaps unique to our modern condition: our inability to withstand the quotidian, the mundane, the average ... It’s hard at times to sympathize with this man, who has clearly upended up his own fairytale world. But we do, inevitably, and as a result we take away from the book the notion that exerting one’s own agency is an ends unto itself. If the outcome happens to make one happy, that’s icing on the cake ... Maum...has a gift for mapping the emotional and psychological terrain of a man, much like Maggie Shipstead did in her debut Seating Arrangements. And like Shipstead, she crafts her sentences in a way that catches the reader off-guard: for every note of chick-lit melodrama there are full measures played in darker, daringly honest, minor keys. I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You is an awkward first novel, but if it weren’t it would somehow be disingenuous to its own literary ambitions of embracing the mess of our lives and welcoming it into our homes, calling the mess a work of art.

Though Maum is dealing with the timeworn topic of marital dysfunction, the author's dark humor, and raw emotional insights infuse the familiar plot line with an engrossing freshness. With sharp prose, Maum chronicles the messy midlife pilgrimage that follows as Richard embarks on a mission to repair both his relationship with his wife and his status in the art world ... Despite these small pitfalls and a few incredulous twists, Maum’s portrait of a domestic dysfunction remains realistic and honest, and Maum succeeds at keeping the reader curious and invested in the outcome of the couple’s relationship. The initial drama of the plot is what draws us in, but the rawness of Richard’s internal struggles and the honesty of his inquiries are what keep us reading. I’m Having So Much Fun Without You is a sharp, big-hearted debut with an emotional pulse that lingers long after we close the book

The basic plotline of this story—a couple falls in love, one cheats and then they struggle to determine what comes next—isn’t unusual. But in I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You, first-time novelist Courtney Maum has crafted the story of a relationship so believable, so realistic that readers will be left wondering until the last minute whether the couple will reunite. Maum, whose years in France (and marriage to a Frenchman) color the book, is a brand strategist and humor columnist. But the razor-sharp writing and character insights of I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You suggest that readers have much to look forward to from this talented storyteller.

... a book that pleases people who read two books a month and people who read two books a year ... Maum convincingly inhabits the thoughts of her protagonist, Richard Haddon, as he stumbles through his crisis, keenly portraying the emotional and physical frustrations that lead him to stray ... I couldn’t help but feel as if a screenwriter of broad comedies had hijacked 70 pages of the book ... Down the stretch, Maum returns to her art, too. She is abundantly gifted — funny, open-hearted, adept at bringing global issues into the personal sphere. Though her novel is an uneven marriage of the literary and the popular, she is certainly capable of making the relationship work and eventually creating that rare thing: a book for everyone.

Despite the clever title and intellectual-verging-on-pretentious characters—a sensitive British painter who wants his work to have meaning; his French lawyer wife who doesn’t want him to sell out; his American former mistress who writes him letters about Kierkegaard—Maum’s first novel is basically a romantic comedy for elitists ... The not-terribly-sharp humor is more enjoyable than the predictable plot shot through with sentimentality.

...an honest, staggeringly realized journey ... Equally funny and touching, the novel strikes deep, presenting a sincere exploration of love and monogamy. These characters are complex, and their story reflects their confusion and desire. As her story bounces through time and across continents...Maum rarely loses focus. An impressive, smart novel.