num_pages: 465
description: Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Diehl is happy toiling away as a criminal law associate at an old line New England firm where she very much appreciates that most of her clients are behind bars. Everyone at Traynor Hand knows she abhors face-to-face contact but one weekend with all the big partners away Sophie must handle the intake interview for the daughter of the firms most important client. After eighteen years of marriage Mayflower descendant Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim has just been served divorce papers in a humiliating scene at the popular local restaurant Golightlys. She is locked and loaded to fight her eminent and ambitious husband Dr. Daniel Durkheim Chief of the Department of Pediatric Oncology for custody of their ten-year-old daughter Janeand she also burns to take him down a peg. Sophie warns Mia that shes never handled a divorce case before but Mia cant be put off. As she so disarmingly puts it: Its her first divorce too. Debut novelist Susan Rieger doesnt leave a word out of place in this hilarious and expertly crafted debut that shines with the power and pleasure of storytelling. Told through personal correspondence office memos emails articles and legal papers this playful reinvention of the epistolary form races along with humor and heartache exploring the complicated family dynamic that results when marriage fails. For Sophie the whole affair sparks a hard look at her own relationshipsnot only with her parents but with colleagues friends lovers and most importantly herself. Much like Whered You Go Bernadette The Divorce Papers will have you laughing aloud and thanking the literature gods for this incredible fresh new voice in fiction.
language: English
title: The Divorce Papers
publisher: Crown