NONFICTION - Dec. 24, 1995

WOMEN ON DIVORCE: A Bedside Companion edited by Penny Kaganoff and Susan Spano. (Harcourt Brace: $22; 195 pp.) In case you haven’t heard, according to the editors of this compelling anthology, the numbers are as follows: “nearly a third of all women who marry between the ages of 20 and 44 get divorced. What is more, half of all second marriages end in divorce.” All of the contributors, including Ann Patchett, Anne Roiphe, Carol Shields, Mary Morris, Perri Klass and Francine Prose, to name a few, describe their relationship with divorce, either as participants or observers or by remembering the marriages of their parents. The consensus is: It’s bad, it’s mean, it’s ugly, and it’s even worse for the children. Oddly enough, as one reads about all these women trying to explain what happened in their lives, trying to forgive and move on and escape patterns, one longs for more details, both practical and situational, and perhaps less philosophizing. One wonders how the corollar anthology of men’s experieces would read, and whether there would be this much apologizing and explaining. I hate to admit it, but the volume seems a little lopsided without it. Still, wanting more is the best criticism.