Fated to Fail: Tales from a Marriage

The marriage of obsessive Max and compulsive Agnes inevitably fails, as the flame and fire burn the life from it over two toxic decades. When their only child is contemplating marriage herself, she asks her father to tell her what went wrong. Max, who has never been able to deny any request of Molly's, sets out to chronicle the sad saga. Though he tries to compose a fair and balanced report, he is aware that he may be seen as an unreliable narrator. Still, he wants to confront the memories head-on and so focuses on what he sees as the crucial episodes, intrigues, and calamities of a flawed union. The result is an egregious case of TMI, revealing much that no child should ever learn about what happened behind and beyond her parents' closed doors.