Review by Booklist Review
Burden's debut memoir explores the emotional journey she embarked upon after her husband of two decades unexpectedly left her. Born into wealth and privilege, Burden's charmed life seemed even more perfect after she met her future husband, James. The couple and their three children lived in a luxury Tribeca apartment and summered on Martha's Vineyard, attending endless parties and joining an exclusive tennis club. But their idyllic life suddenly falls apart when Burden finds out that James is having an affair in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic; shortly after, he announces he is leaving her. Left to pick up the pieces, she struggles to comprehend what went wrong and if she could be to blame. She no longer recognizes the man she bound her life to; he suddenly seems like a stranger. This detailed narrative of what happens after the end of a marriage recounts the many pathways Burden traveled to understand what happened and to begin building a new life.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Immigration lawyer Burden traces the exhilarating start and excruciating dissolution of her two-decade marriage in this bruising debut. Dividing the narrative into five acts, Burden recounts how, during the Covid pandemic, her husband of 20 years abruptly walked out on her and their three children without explanation. After he left, Burden desperately searched for answers, blaming herself and relitigating their idyllic courtship, looking for signs of his unhappiness in his occasional coldness and passing moments of rigidity. As her husband's communication grew less frequent and he refused to see their children, she came to accept that she may have never truly known him. Then he initiated vicious divorce proceedings, transforming from "a benign stranger wandering out of my life" to "an adversary, determined to win." After the divorce was finalized, Burden published a "Modern Love" essay in the New York Times, breaking an emotional dam within her and allowing her to finally move on from her recursive cycle of self-blame. With unsparing emotional clarity, Burden examines the often-baffling ways relationships can fall apart, and charts a path for people looking to reassemble their own lives. It's a gut punch. Agent: Bretne Bloom, Book Group. (Jan.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The story of a woman's surprising divorce and her attempt to build anew. After Burden's husband of 20 years walked out during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, her stepmother tried to explain the checkered response of their wealthy community: "There is no script for divorce, especially one as dramatic as yours." The author's debut expands and fine-tunes the piece she submitted to "Modern Love," theNew York Times column, tracing her ex-husband James' transformation from reliable partner to detached stranger to legal adversary. This more complete narrative reveals the amplified stakes surrounding the collapse of Burden's marriage: financial, familial, and societal. The latter half of Burden's book, which describes grappling with the logistics of disentangling from James and finding new independence, strength, and compassion, lacks some of the raw emotional vulnerability that marked herTimes contribution. But these chapters do expose the reaction of her wider circle, both the cold comments and the surprisingly supportive ones, and the expectations of women of her social status. (The author is a descendant of the Vanderbilts, with media founders, international style icons, and hedge fund executives scattered through her family tree.) It is difficult to completely erase all hints of society-page voyeurism--this is, after all, the world of keyed beach access passed down through generations, where private club membership is an item negotiated in marital separation. However, if Burden's privilege remains in the frame, so does its attendant social elegance. In reclaiming her voice and story, Burden refuses to keep the silence and make the excuses as implicitly expected by society and explicitly demanded by her ex, and she remains charitable and gracious even when she does not have to be. This balance imbues her story with a certain power as both the missing script for would-be commenters and a radical extension of kindness toward herself. A measured, empathetic, and modern response to an enraging callousness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
