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Divorce American Style
Splitopia: Dispatches from Today's Good Divorce and How to Part Well by Wendy Paris
I. Introduction
Splitopia is not a conventional legal divorce book. That is, it isn't a howto-file-for-a-divorce book, it isn't a critique of the laws of divorce, and it doesn't give tips on how to be a better divorce lawyer. What it does do, however, offer is a positive view of divorce. It seeks to create a new narrative for the good divorce, replacing myths of crisis and contentiousness with images of cooperation and collaboration, and myths of depression and vindictiveness with images of self-growth and emotional stability.
Splitopia is the kind of book we would recommend to a friend considering divorce, fearful that the process would be nasty, brutish, and long, and worried about what might happen to a functioning family. Wendy Paris is like having an older, wiser friend who has just had a "good" divorce and who is cheerfully willing to share her advice and counsel. As we learn in the first five pages, Paris is a child of divorce who had good role models on how to prevent divorce from destroying a family. She remains close to both parents, and her parents are close to one another. Indeed, when Wendy and her "future ex-husband" decided to divorce, her father was living with his third ex-wife, and their relationship was a far more "symbiotic and laughter-filled friendship" than it was when they were married.1
While the book might be particularly useful as a guide for clients, it also provides valuable insights for lawyers on how our clients might be experiencing divorce and on the types of nonlegal advice we might provide to support them outside of our offices. It skillfully brings together the author's personal experiences in separating from her husband, research on the psychological and emotional aspects of divorce, advice on how to cope with being single, and, in an appendix, policy recommendations on how to improve American divorce. Throughout, Paris interweaves her own experiences and the perspectives of those whom she has met along her divorce path, with psychological insights and practical advice. In our review, we explore why the book should be useful to family lawyers and clients, and then discuss some...