This novel has been compared to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and rightly so. The 3 Weissmanns are dumped wife Betty and her daughters, practical librarian Anne, who is divorced and the mother of 2 grown sons, and flighty Miranda, whose successful literary agency has been destroyed by several James Frey-like memoirists. Betty's husband, Joseph, has recently become enamored of co-worker Felicity and decides that the time is right to end his 48-year marriage and embark on new adventures in love. Joseph, with Felicity's encouragement, freezes 70-year-old Betty out financially until the details of their divorce are settled, and Betty is forced to leave their New York city apartment and move to a small cottage in Westport, CT, available due to the beneficence of eccentric cousin Lou, to whom almost everyone is "like family". Miranda, on the verge of bankruptcy and with her professional reputation in ruins, decides to accompany her mother to Westport. Anne sublets her apartment and moves to Westport with them, commuting daily to her library job in the city.
Betty is in denial about her divorce and decides to adapt the persona of a grieving widow. Rather than being angry at Joseph's legal maneuverings, she believes that she will return to her home and that things will eventually straighten out financially. Miranda, whose pattern of short-lived love affairs and poor choices continues, meets a younger man with an adorable son and falls in love with them both while pretending that her business dealings haven't drained her of all her resources. Both Betty and Miranda spend Anne's money with total abandon while she struggles to maintain their home and keep their heads above water.
This entertaining novel, like Jane Austen's, has a bit of everything: tragedy, thwarted love, revenge, and the universal struggle to survive against great odds. Schine shows us a family of women who are survivors and whose story is well-worth reading.
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