You will not want to put this book down— not only because it is so good, but also because you will want to be there, standing side by side with Gwendolyn, until the very last page.” – -Linda Bloodworth Thomason, creator of Designing Women
“What can you learn about yourself from an alcoholic monkey? It turns out, a hell of a lot. This is a thoughtful and highly entertaining tale.” -Alex DeMille, New York Times bestselling author
“Original, deftly crafted, laced with irony, humor, and the impact of social changes, Gwendolyn & Eddie is a fun, fascinating, and thought-provoking read from start to finish.” -Midwest Review of Books
“As a character study, Seabaugh’s novel is evocative, written with sparkling prose. Gwendolyn is complex and flawed, bound by her duties to be a good, supportive wife and mother.” -Kirkus Reviews
“Seabaugh, a skilled psychologist, weaves subtle layers of psychological insight into the narrative without ever slowing its lively pace.” -David Kirkpatrick, former President of Paramount Studios
“Seabaugh made this reader believe men really can understand women—ad maybe even monkeys. A captivating, enthralling, and provocative work.” –Miranda Faye Dillon, award-winning author
“Seabaugh’s skill with the pen radiates across every chapter, making Gwendolyn and Eddie a must read for 2025.” -AEB Reviews.
Gwendolyn & Eddie
A Novel
It begins with a monkey. It ends with an inescapable tragedy.
In 1957, Gwendolyn has it all. A legendary local beauty (she’s still got it), a handsome doctor for a husband (complicated, like something out of a Hemingway novel), three genetically-blessed children, a beautiful new house overlooking the Mississippi River. What could go wrong?
Let’s start with Eddie: an alcoholic monkey won by her husband in a poker game, who is turned over to her for care and feeding. Of course she will accept the duty, that’s what she does, that’s who she is. But Gwendolyn soon learns that being the perfect #tradwife does not guarantee success. Especially when she’s up against Paul Stanley, that husband who seems to love his bourbon and his nurses more than her. All of this confuses Gwendolyn, especially when Paul Stanley comes back out of the darkness and shines his love light on her. She gets help from her bawdy, wise friend Dixie who advises her to get over herself and learn to do oral (“It calms them down”) and a lot of unexpected help from Eddie. The monkey is a comical disrupter but also a trusty observer as Gwendolyn navigates the dismantling of her domestic dream amidst the turbulent waters of societal change. As the predictable 1950s evolve into the increasingly tumultuous ’60s and beyond, Gwendolyn finds her conservative beliefs challenged by the cultural realities of racism, homophobia, traditional masculinity, the sexual revolution, and the struggle for women’s rights.
For over forty years, a time marked by hilarity and heartbreak, Eddie serves as her clown prince, her unexpected confidant, and when all is said and done, her solace. Yes, we all get by with a little help from our friends, but will Gwendolyn find the clarity she will need in the flickering gaslight of her marriage to finally free Eddie from the cage he never asked for, to find her own exit from the golden cage of her life, to face the inescapable tragedy that awaits her?
Download Chapter
The Cure For Love
Also by Michael O.L. Seabaugh
Dr. Michael Seabaugh, a Santa Barbara psychologist, published his first novel in The Cure for Love in 2013. Besides being a psychotherapist with over 30 years experience, Seabaugh is also a journalist who has written for many newspapers and magazines on the topics of relationships, health psychology, and social concerns.
The Cure for Love is, according to Kirkus Reviews, “an intense psychological dissection of love.” It does so through telling the story of Andrew, an earnest young man who is trying to make love work with his fascinating but frustrating fiancé. He seeks out the help of Dr. Jack Cochran, who is famous for his self-help book on relationships called “Winning at the Game of Love”. The doctor has failed miserably in his own marriage to an equally fascinating yet maddening woman named Alexandra. This background, unknown to Andrew, informs their therapeutic dialogue in some very surprising ways. When some shocking information is revealed about Andrew’s relationship with his fiancé, the two men are hurled into an ethically murky situation that results in tragedy and ultimately, a greater understanding of what love requires.
Seabaugh says he was compelled to write this novel as a way of more honorably exploring the conundrums of love that have plagued so many of his patients over the years. He explained: “There is an intoxication that comes from the Hollywood version of love and then there is the reductive version that comes from your typical self-help book. We haven’t been necessarily well served by these models, nor perhaps from the models we had in our own families of origin. I’ve attempt to address the subject of adult relationships and its complexities, not by romanticizing them or reducing them to bullet points, but by expanding the dialogue. I’ve attempted to do this in the context of a hopefully compelling story.”
Michael Seabaugh
Dr. Michael Seabaugh is a clinical psychologist who lives in Santa Barbara, California. He’s also a journalist who has written many newspaper columns and magazine articles over the years. An abiding interest in the complex stories of human struggle, conflict and redemption has always guided his professional endeavors. After years of listening to these stories, he now turns to telling them through the artifice of fiction, for as Picasso said: “Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
I have had much preparation for such a turn. My education has been varied… An undergraduate degree in journalism from the esteemed University of Missouri School of Journalism, a MFA in Theater Arts (writing) from UCLA, a doctorate in psychology from USC. But with all that, It has been the many years of sitting in a chair opposite my fellow humans as they struggle with the heartaches, the unexpected joys, the demons of anxiety and depression, and ultimately the meaning of their lives, that has been my greatest education for writing the novels I list below.
GWENDOLYN AND EDDIE (2025, Koehlerbooks), is his third novel.
It tells the story of a 1950s housewife who dutifully takes charge of an alcoholic monkey that her husband won in a poker game. The irascible monkey becomes her comic relief and companion over the next forty years as she is challenged by the unraveling of her domestic dream as well as her conservative beliefs.
His first novel, THE CURE FOR LOVE, released in 2013, is still available on Amazon. It is a story about Jack Cochran, a psychologist who is considered one of the country’s foremost experts in relationships, even though he spectacularly failed in his marriage to the eccentric and beautiful Alexandria. One fateful day Andrew appears in his office asking for help with his mercurial fiancé, hurtling the doctor into an ethical nightmare and a tragic unfolding that explores the glories as well as the deep shadows of love.
Next up: THE UNCLOUDED DAY, a dramedy that takes place in the pivotal year of 1969. Johnny Magnolia, a black man who aspires to become a linguistics professor, becomes a notorious draft dodger, and an accidental hero of the anti-war movement, when he goes on the lam disguised as a woman. On his journey down the Mississippi River Road to New Orleans, he hooks up with an aging country doctor whose mind has seen better days, a feisty prostitute/former debutant with a tragic secret, an undocumented Vietnamese woman searching for her GI who got her pregnant. More will be revealed. Stay tuned.
