SEPARATION: Journal of a Marriage

Eve Baguedor often refers to this story of a middle-aged parting of the ways as a soap opera which relieves the reviewer of any onus beyond concurrence but certainly there are readers as well as viewers who like to like to learn the way some other people live, particularly if they share the same lonely, rankling and often regretful circumstances. With candor, indeed intimacy, she records how after 20 years -- their twin daughters about ready to leave home -- she and Hank decided to end their marriage for a variety of reasons (it was not ""real""; he was depressive and often felt unloved; she never accepted him or just conciliated; etc., etc.). There follow the various stages with lawyers, psychiatrists, another woman for him, desultory experiences for her, until they resume living together apart and finally ensemble. Eve, a far more pliant, indecisive, variable Eve than you'll find in the younger sisterhood, makes the point that even where custom stales, dependency has been established to such a point that freedom in vacuo is not very desirable. Say for the Marya Mannes readership, self-exposed without the pretension of enlightenment.