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Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
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About This Book
It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn't.In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed "Belle the Good"—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
Reviews
"It's a timeless portrait of midlife heartbreak, and will be a precious balm for those who have suffered much the same thing."
"Burden doesn't need defending, not really."
"A hypnotic nail-biter, unfolding like a true-crime novel ..."
"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."
"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."
"A measured, empathetic, and modern response to an enraging callousness."
"Burden's divorce memoir is a compelling tale of marriage and deception."
"Burden's prose reflects both her legal training and her exacting care with language, as if she is acutely aware of how closely her social universe will weigh each sentence ..."
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