Before I read The Divorcées, the debut novel by Chicago author Rowan Beaird, I didn’t know the fascinating history of Reno’s “divorce ranches.” From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Nevada’s relatively liberal divorce laws attracted thousands of married people, mostly women, to ranches where they would stay for six weeks to achieve the residency requirement for a quick divorce.
Rowan Beaird in conversation with Rebecca Makkai
Wed 3/20 7 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, womenandchildrenfirst.com/event/person-divorcees-rowan-beaird, free, registration required
The transient nature of strangers living together, away from the stricter social mores of their homes, makes for a rich setting that Beaird illuminates with lush prose. Yet, while this slow-burning work of literary fiction has an intriguing plot, I ultimately found The Divorcées less than satisfying.
In 1951, protagonist Lois Saunders, the daughter of Polish immigrants who have come into new money in Chicago’s meatpacking industry, travels from her home in the upper-class suburb of Lake Forest to the Golden Yarrow, a divorce ranch that caters to wealthy women. Unlike some of her peers, Lois arrives in Reno with no scandalous stories of infidelity or scars from physical abuse. However, she feels a desperate need to get out of an unhappy marriage to a man whose petty cruelties and lack of understanding have made her terrified of conceiving a child that would further bind her to him.
Credit: Faith Kelsey
After growing up with few friends and a lonely family life, Lois initially struggles to connect with her peers in Nevada, whose higher social status allows them to step more easily into Golden Yarrow’s glamorous lifestyle of horseback rides, cocktail hours, and gambling at the casinos. When the beautiful Greer Lang arrives at the ranch with a severely bruised face, apparently abundant wealth, and an air of secrecy that hints she’s an incognito celebrity, Lois is thrilled that the new guest befriends her.
As Lois and Greer develop an “intense, consuming closeness” during their stay, the mysteries about Greer’s background and her true intentions deepen. Beaird is adept at exploring how the patriarchal environments in which Lois has spent her life—both in her father’s home and as a married woman—have so disconnected her from her intuition that she suppresses any doubts about her new friend.
Homoerotic undertones can be read here, with Beaird describing how Lois clenches her stomach the first time Greer touches her and feels “the holy oil smeared on her forehead, so warm it hums” when Greer wants to spend time alone together. Is Lois simply experiencing the pull of a magnetic personality after a lifetime with no close friends? Or is it something more? The author plays it coy.
Beaird skillfully crafts a tense, mysterious plot, but the climax underwhelms. And the novel’s character development focuses so exclusively on Lois that it’s difficult to emotionally engage with the story if, like me, you don’t feel very connected to her. Nevertheless, the theme of a young woman escaping a repressive situation and building a new life for herself is inspiring, and I would read more from this author in the future.
The Divorcées by Rowan Beaird
Flatiron Books, hardcover, 272 pp., $28.99, us.macmillan.com/books/9781250896582/thedivorcees
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