Episodes in Disguise of a Marriage

- A fifty-year journey through love, desire, and transformation that balances storytelling with philosophical inquiry and cultural analysis - Offers a male perspective on sexuality, marriage, and emotional vulnerability, with contributions from the author's wife to deepen the relational narrative - Draws on craniosacral therapy, t'ai chi ch'uan, and psychic work to examine how relationships reflect the deeper forces that shape identity and consciousness In this nontraditional, nonfiction novel, Richard Grossinger documents fifty years of his relationship with poet Lindy Hough. He traces the arc of their partnership from youthful idealism through the alchemical transformations of marriage, parenthood, infidelity, and aging. Exploring the forces that shape intimacy, Grossinger shares a deeply personal narrative that is couched in an esoteric framework. Written primarily from a male perspective, the novel explores male sexuality and fantasy. The author shares meditations on marriage as a spiritual crucible, reflecting deeply on the libidinal forces that animate human experience. A chapter by Hough, along with her editorial interventions throughout, offers a female counter-voice to complicate the narrative and enrich the relational dynamic that underpins the story. Grossinger draws on decades of esoteric and psychological study, including Jungian dreamwork, breath alchemy, Breema, and psychic healing. These studies provide a framework as he explores the archetypes of love and transformation that emerge and evolve in long-term partnerships. By situating personal experience in the cosmology of eros, Grossinger treats sex not as a discrete act but as a portal into the confluence of shadow and soul, of trauma and revelation. In exploring the paradoxes of eros and the long shadow of desire, Episodes in Disguise of a Marriage investigates the inner logic of love and the psychosexual depth of creation.