Strangers
A Memoir of Marriage
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4.5 • 735 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Burden’s searing, probing memoir explores . . . what she learned about intimacy and her own spirit.”—People
“A beautifully written instant classic. Strangers is gripping and heartbreaking and a must-read for every wife—and husband.”—Graydon Carter
“Asks us to examine life’s most perplexing questions: Can we see the invisible fault lines in a marriage or truly know the people closest to us?”—Lori Gottlieb
It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t.
In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.
In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.
With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This is one of the most emotionally intimate memoirs we’ve read in ages. A week into the 2020 pandemic shutdowns, Belle Burden and her husband, James, were quarantining with their three children when a voicemail turned her world upside down. The caller was another woman’s husband, informing Belle that their spouses were having an affair—and his wife had just attempted suicide. Within days, Belle’s husband of two decades walked out on their family without remorse or explanation. She tells the story of her despair and eventual rebuilding without self-pity, even as she recounts her husband’s shocking coldness (which included rejecting even partial custody of their kids). We were moved by Belle’s devotion to her children and fascinated by her unflinching examination of a marriage she’d thought she understood. Expanded from a viral 2023 New York Times Modern Love column, Strangers is a powerful memoir about heartbreak and self-discovery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Immigration lawyer Burden traces the exhilarating start and excruciating dissolution of her two-decade marriage in this bruising debut. Dividing the narrative into five acts, Burden recounts how, during the Covid pandemic, her husband of 20 years abruptly walked out on her and their three children without explanation. After he left, Burden desperately searched for answers, blaming herself and relitigating their idyllic courtship, looking for signs of his unhappiness in his occasional coldness and passing moments of rigidity. As her husband's communication grew less frequent and he refused to see their children, she came to accept that she may have never truly known him. Then he initiated vicious divorce proceedings, transforming from "a benign stranger wandering out of my life" to "an adversary, determined to win." After the divorce was finalized, Burden published a "Modern Love" essay in the New York Times, breaking an emotional dam within her and allowing her to finally move on from her recursive cycle of self-blame. With unsparing emotional clarity, Burden examines the often-baffling ways relationships can fall apart, and charts a path for people looking to reassemble their own lives. It's a gut punch.
Customer Reviews
Absorbing
I didn’t expect to like this book. I don’t generally like ‘women’s fiction’ or emotional sagas, and the premise of following a difficult divorce didn’t appeal to me. Since it was a bestseller, though, I decided to download a sample and check it out. It was well-written and I got hooked in the first section. I bought the book and ended up being absorbed through the whole piece.
The author does come from a place of privilege but her feelings of betrayal and loss are universal. The section on her family history was also very interesting. I guess sometimes wealth comes with hidden costs too.
A different lesson
I read the sample then bought the book & finished it in a couple of hours. I loved the writing style but could’ve edited out some fillers, I don’t care about ospreys although contrasting monandrous birds to a cheating husband was smart, but overdone.
While I found the white privileged lifestyle, illusionary white picket fence, Beaver Cleaver marriage beliefs unrealistic, a professional woman putting herself at risk in this marriage outdated, caring about people’s opinion, country club acceptance irrational & totally disingenuous given marriage failure stats & frequency of infidelity in society.
But from a generation long time past, you worked to get your degrees, licenses & leave your functional brain cells behind when you put on the ring, this is a cautionary tale. Protect yourself, read what you are signing, don’t let love make you a victim.
Loved
Beautifully written and fun to read