"Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage" by Belle Burden

"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."

I was very drawn to the premise of Strangers as soon as I saw it in Trident Booksellers, because just the day before, we had met someone who was supposed to get married this past summer, but two weeks before the wedding, her fiancé left her for someone else. Her story seemed like it would be closely mirrored in Burden's book, which chronicles the sudden dissolution of the author's 20-year marriage. (As it turns out--I've bastardized Tolstoy in almost this exact way before, but I'm going to do it again: each unhappy relationship is unhappy in its own way.)

This is definitely a compelling, even mildly shocking, read. What initially felt like it might just be a very public way of revenge turns out to be more nuanced than that. The reader hunts for clues in the past and chases after elusive answers, seeking understanding, right alongside the author.  Ultimately, Strangers turned out to not be a book that I would consider top-tier, but it definitely had a voyeuristic pull, especially considering the fact that it tells a true story. 

This book started off as a 700-word essay for the weekly NYT column, "Modern Love". After I finished reading Strangers, I found myself very curious to read its antecedent, Was I Married to a Stranger? I was unable to find a copy that I could read without paying for it (and heck, I already paid for the book!!) but I ended up telling myself it's not like I would learn anything new from the article after having read the whole book. Although it would be interesting to see where the focus lay in the condensed version, just as it may be interesting to see how Gwyneth Paltrow approaches the material in the coming Netflix adaptation.

I am torn between not mentioning this at all (because over eight billion people either don't know, or don't care, or both) and addressing an elephant in the room that an infinitesimal number of people are aware of. I am deciding in favor of the latter, minimalist style: Sam and I, for various reasons, each scuttled our first marriages, and I can imagine some of those elephant-aware people wondering if I don't see parallels between us and Burden's ex, or wondering if we feel no guilt. To which I will only say two things: 1) you don't scuttle a beautiful yacht that is in great shape, or more directly stated, nobody ever leaves a good marriage; and 2) another quote from Strangers (which was meant to evoke sympathy for the author; admittedly, saying it directly to Burden was heartless, but that didn't keep what was said from resonating with me): "James leaving Belle could be a good thing. My father left my mother for another woman, and she was the love of his life. They were so happy together."