{"id":3406,"date":"2026-07-07T22:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2026-07-07T22:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:08:12","slug":"opinion-the-effects-of-divorce-through-the-eyes-of-2-novelists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3406","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The effects of divorce through the eyes of 2 novelists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Toward the end of \u201cLake Effect,\u201d the new novel by Cynthia D\u2019Aprix Sweeney, Clara Larkin recounts at a dinner party the story of her mother\u2019s decision to leave her family for the married man across the street. <\/p>\n

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A woman Clara doesn\u2019t know responds to the story by asking, \u201cWasn\u2019t that what everyone<\/i> was doing in the seventies?\u201d <\/p>\n

And just like that everyone dismissed the story \u2014 \u201cthe conversation moved on to a new downtown restaurant.\u201d It is the beginning of Clara\u2019s decision to let go of the pain she had been carrying since high school when her mother blew up their family. <\/p>\n

Readers are supposed to applaud development. Clara is a difficult character to like. Maybe she made too big a deal of the whole divorce thing. After all, everyone was doing it. In the wake of the \u201celopement,\u201d Clara does not speak to her mother, Nina, and does not visit her and makes it very hard for her younger sister to do so either. Clara has a reasonably competent father, but she takes over the role of keeping house, cooking and watching over her sister. When she decides not to go to college in order to stay in this role, her mother says to her, \u201cI truly hope this is the last time you hurt yourself by exaggerating the importance of your presence.\u201d <\/p>\n

What an awful thing to say when a girl is abandoned by her mother and sees herself as needing to fill in.<\/p>\n

Both \u201cLake Effect\u201d and \u201cWhistler,\u201d Ann Patchett\u2019s recently released novel, are interested in the question of what happens to children when adults decide to end their marriages. Both books give reasonable accounts of why the adults would want to leave their marriages. Coincidentally, both Nina and Abigail, the mother in \u201cWhistler,\u201d find themselves married to men who are gay but in the closet. Is that enough reason to end a marriage?<\/p>\n

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Despite Nina\u2019s guilt about breaking up her family, her loveless marriage seems to her a reasonable justification. Abigail\u2019s decision, though we don\u2019t see it from the same vantage point, suggests that her husband\u2019s regular infidelity was an issue. While both novels take place during a time when people had fewer options, the question is still whether the ultimate end of marriage is personal fulfillment or whether the former should be sacrificed when the latter can\u2019t be achieved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhistler\u201d is told from the perspective of Daphne, Abigail\u2019s daughter, who as an adult has a chance encounter with her mother\u2019s second husband, Eddie. He was only in her life for a couple of years but had an enormous (and positive) influence on her and her younger sister. He was kind and clearly a stabilizing influence on their mother. He was cultured and well-read. During the most important interaction, Eddie helps Daphne overcome her fears to save their lives after a car accident. Abigail banished Eddie from their lives afterward \u2014 though she never explains why \u2014 and it would be decades before Daphne sees him again. Her mother marries again and has more kids but it\u2019s clear that Daphne never gets the kind of love, attention and stability that Eddie offered.<\/p>\n

Slowly Daphne (with the encouragement of her sister, a therapist) realizes the hole that was left in their lives when they lost Eddie. Abigail dismisses his importance in the life of her daughters, and even when her sister tries to tell the story of Daphne saving Eddie\u2019s life, her mother says, \u201cThat\u2019s a little hyperbolic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do parents underestimate the impact that their absence has on children? It\u2019s hard not to. Children can seem \u201cresilient.\u201d Daphne never tells her mother what Eddie meant to her. As a 9-year-old, did she really know? Clara makes clear what the divorce means \u2014 she feels her mother\u2019s absence so hard that she tries to replace her \u2014 but the adults in her life have made their decision. She is just presented with the fait accompli.<\/p>\n

Our divorce rate has reached a low point recently \u2014 in part because we\u2019re not getting married as much. We have come a long way since the \u201970s when \u201ceveryone\u201d was doing it. Though both novels describe the pain of adults trapped in loveless marriages because of the conventions of their times, the stories are also an acknowledgment of the wreckage left behind when adults tried to extricate themselves.<\/p>\n

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Parents tend to underestimate the ramifications of divorce on children, as 2 new novels show<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nOpinion: The effects of divorce through the eyes of 2 novelists - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3406\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opinion: The effects of divorce through the eyes of 2 novelists - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Parents tend to underestimate the ramifications of divorce on children, as 2 new novels show\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3406\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-07T22:08:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af\"},\"headline\":\"Opinion: The effects of divorce through the eyes of 2 novelists\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-07T22:08:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406\"},\"wordCount\":787,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/d1309d64d16195e5616cb7af6184af02.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Family\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3406\",\"name\":\"Opinion: The effects of divorce through the eyes of 2 novelists - 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