The last good book I read was Theo Nestor’s divorce memoir, How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed.
I can’t remember ever reading another memoir about divorce, but I enjoyed this one. The first chapter is essentially the Modern Love essay Theo wrote for the New York Times. The feedback she got from publishing her essay actually plays a small role in her transition from married to single mother. I wish the first chapter to my memoir would present itself to me in similar fashion, but no such luck.
Theo mentions that thing Dad would occasionally do when he and Mom were arguing. Dad would say, “If this were the Old Country, I could clap my hands three times and you would be divorced.” Sometimes Dad would even clap his hands once for effect. Theo says that’s a Sunni tradition, but I wonder if it isn’t pan-Arab. Dad was Catholic and he seemed pretty familiar with it.
Of course, Mom didn’t care about any clapping hands nonsense. She would just shrug her shoulders and say, “This ain’t the Old Country.”
Present Tense 