The Divorce Papers: Susan Rieger – Wholesome, Smart & Funny

The Divorce Papers: A Novel by Susan Rieger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a story of a divorce, with minor sub-plots of corporate politics and a side romance. I enjoyed the epistolary format (this one used not only correspondence but also notices, newspaper clippings, invitations, lists and legal documents). In addition, the pre-millenial nostalgia wave was charming with its old fogies protesting the informality of email, the blatant sexism in its dying moments before it became politically incorrect to be so.

I thoroughly loved the key protagonists, Mia Mieklejohn Durkheim and her reluctant divorce lawyer Sophie Diehl. They are fiery, willful women who sail through their personal battles with wit and dignity but also plenty of laughter. The ugly divorce, down to custody battles and infidelity is laid out without flinching but miraculously in a funny, engaging manner.

The only part that held me back from giving this book a full five stars was the amount of legalese and bureaucratic paperwork that one had to read through. I imagine that the author tried to de-jargonize the language as much as possible without compromising on the flavour of a law proceeding. Still, since the documents told the story, they had to be pored over and official documents are never interesting to read. In addition, to a person not absolutely in love with numbers and accounting, the long lists of monies would be definite roadblocks. This said, I’m not sure if the book could have been written any other way. It makes a very clear point of the fact that a divorce is not not closure or therapy but a commercial exercise to fairly divide all the assets and wealth within a marriage.

I skimmed through most of the legal papers and completely skipped the number lists, relying on the letters, emails and other parts to get the gist of the story. And I found the book thoroughly enjoyable. I got this off NetGalley.

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