“Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.”
Work
Bestselling and award-winning author Suzanne Finnamore writes a story of divorce that is “brilliant” (Augusten Burroughs) and sure to become a classic. <br><br>There are certain books that come to epitomize their painful subject matter, offering solace to those who share the same fate and pleasure to those who merely appreciate fine writing. What <i>The Year of Magical Thinking</i>did for grief, what <i>Drinking: A Love Story</i>did for alcoholism, now Split does for divorce. Prescriptive yet full of pragmatic advice, insight and black humor, Split is a finely wrought tourniquet for a broken union and its attendant trauma. <br><br>Suzanne Finnamore, author of the novel Otherwise Engaged, didn’t see it coming. Well, perhaps she saw something—for example, a cocktail napkin on which her husband, N, had scribbled a Cole Porter love song and someone else’s name—but she refused to acknowledge it. She was busy tending to their one-year-old son, then applying makeup, donning high heels, and mixing a martini to greet N with when he arrived home at night. Until the night N came home, told her she looked beautiful, changed his clothes, and announced that he was leaving. <br><br>In crystalline, riveting prose, Finnamore tells the story of her divorce, and her marriage, and how it all imploded and came back together, changed. At once quite funny, achingly sad, and unflinchingly fierce, Split will resonate with anyone who’s endured the end of a relationship.
Quotes
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Suzanne Finnamore
Canonical work source
“Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.”
“I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfec...”
“In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.”
“I review what I know once again, confronting the monolith now alien and almost unconnected to me: my marriage.”
“Yes. THANK YOU. And say hello to Judas Iscariot.”
“Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, a...”
“Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and ex...”
“They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.”
“I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.”
“I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detes...”
“Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.”
“I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.”
“My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it.”
“It had all seemed as inevitable as sunset. Instead it was the beauty of the sun glinting upon the scythe.”
“To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage...”
“This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave...”
“Très, très, triste...”
“Although I notice there is never a truly good time to have a nice long chat with one´s mother-in-law, unless you are having an extraordinary life and marriage and your mother-in-law is, say,...”
“Naturally, I do blame Françoise. I blame her for having N in the first place. She was young, she was beautiful, she was married to a doctor, and she was intelligent. She could have abstained...”
“I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-...”
“I´ve blown it, the whole grisly charade.”
“I know my vision is impaired and cannot be trusted with even the simplest tasks, much less dating. Not that I´ve come within talon distance of a man.”
“I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair. Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kil...”
“The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.”