This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life

In this scorching memoir, former Rumpus editor Lenz (God Land) delivers a rousing pep talk to women contemplating divorce. Through a portrait of her own failed 11-year relationship, Lenz elucidates how the traditional role of the wife (who’s expected to take her husband’s name, perform housework, and give up her financial independence) often proves debilitating for women, even as myths perpetuated by TV, literature, and religious scripture insist that marriage is “worth it.” Homeschooled in an evangelical family of eight children, Lenz dutifully married, had two kids, and followed her husband to a broken-down house in Iowa in support of his career, even as her own floundered. Gradually, she began to feel constricted by their arrangement, and reached a breaking point when she discovered that her conservative husband had been hiding her left-leaning political mugs, as well as books he disapproved of, in their basement. Lenz supplements her personal narrative with research about the benefits of ending a marriage for women’s well-being (including a study that claims 74% of divorced women feel liberated by the process) and interviews with hundreds of women about their marriages and divorces. Lenz’s arguments about the inequalities baked into traditional marriages don’t break much new ground, but they gain immediacy thanks to her fiery tone. This is galvanizing stuff. Agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer, Neon Literary. (Feb.)