I’m happy to admit that sometimes I pick books for superficial reasons – it’s why I have The Divorcées by Rowan Beaird – I bought it for the cover.

The story focuses on Lois Saunders, who had thought that marrying the right man would cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband was, Lois felt suffocated in their loveless marriage and leaves him.

Pretend we’re in a movie, he would say before they went to a dinner party, but she wasn’t sure how to, as no one was there to give her the lines.

In 1951, unhappiness was not grounds for divorce – except in Reno, Nevada – and Lois travels to the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s famous ‘divorce ranches’.

At the Golden Yarrow, Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcées, including the beautiful and mysterious Greer Lang. The women spend their days shopping and riding horses, and their nights at bars and casinos, flirting with cowboys, rediscovering ‘ …who they all were before their men’.

Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met – notably she is indifferent to societal convention and for Lois, craving independence and never having had a close female friend, time spent with Greer is exhilarating. As her six weeks in Reno unfolds (and encouraged by Greer), Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her.

I was interested in the history of the divorce ranches. Essentially, in 1940s and 50s America, if you wanted a divorce, you headed to Reno, Nevada. And if you had the money and the need for privacy, you stayed at a divorce ranch.

In 1931, the state of Nevada passed two new laws to help recovery from the Great Depression – one legalized gambling, and the other shortened Nevada’s residency requirement from three months to six weeks, making it easier for someone to move to the state for a few weeks and then file for divorce. Nevada also had much broader grounds for divorce compared to other states, where commonly proof of adultery was the only legal grounds accepted.

As Lois’s lawyer explained, short of infidelity –

“There are eight remaining grounds for divorce in this state: impotency, desertion, conviction of a felony, drunkenness, neglect… insanity, living apart for three years, and extreme cruelty.”

The atmospheric detail in this book was well done – dusty trail rides, days by the pool in the burning Nevada sun, cocktail hour and nights in casinos.

I also enjoyed the brief but rich reference to mother-daughter relationships. Lois mentions the death of her mother and the lack of guidance she provided in terms of relationships, and expectations within a marriage. Instead, Lois’s impressions of relationships are based on what she has seen in movies. It’s implied that Lois’s mother was also deeply unhappy – both as a person and in her marriage.

The wildest place she’s been is the woods outside of Chicago, where her mother would sometimes take her on Sunday drives, pulling alongside a stretch of forest just so they could open their lungs and yell. Though the hoarse strangle in her mother’s voice frightened Lois, soon it would smooth to a wail, like a knot loosening…Afterward, her mother would turn to her, grinning, and Lois would lift with her same happiness, her mother’s moods coloring her life like weather.

A significant plot line emerges toward the end of the novel – I guess it was needed to create tension but the intensity of this element disrupted the pace in what could have been simply an engaging character study.

3/5

Upstairs, Lois orders a French 75 – a drink that should be sipped, the champagne’s prickling bubbles ensuring she won’t swallow it in one gulp.