On Romance, Marriage, and Divorce
Deep Read #33 with Haley Mlotek
Deep Read #33 [Apple | Spotify] is a conversation with the writer, editor, and organiser Haley Mlotek.
Haley is the author of a new book titled, ‘No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce’, which is both a social and cultural history of divorce and a personal account of Haley’s own experiences – as the granddaughter of a woman who divorced three times; the daughter of a successful divorce mediator; a woman who was herself once married and is no longer.
As you’ll hear me state (multiple times) during the episode, I’ve always been more intrigued by the institution of marriage than I am drawn to it. Having never truly felt called to get married - much less imagined myself walking down the aisle in a big white dress - I’m interested in why a legally binding union is so enduringly compelling to others. I’m also interested in why these unions, so earnestly entered into, often unravel. Haley and I discuss all this and much more.
‘No Fault’ explores and continues a long lineage of women writing about their divorces. They use storytelling to make sense of heartbreak, distance, and betrayal – but also to document a journey that ultimately, and invariably, feels like emancipation.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Phoebe
HALEY MLOTEK: Deep Reading List
“I know that my marriage and my divorce and the fact that no-fault divorce exists at all do not answer the questions worth asking: Who did you choose, and who chose you? Who did you leave, and who left you? To be wanted is one thing, and to be left is another. The gravity in either direction is stunning, if you think about it for long enough.”
‘No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce’, Haley Mlotek
“They had created themselves together, and they always saw themselves, their youth, their love, their lost youth and lost love, their failures and memories, as a sort of living fiction.”
‘Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature’, Elizabeth Hardwick
“The big lie perpetrated on Western society is the idea of women's inferiority, a lie so deeply ingrained in our social behaviour that merely to recognise it is to risk unravelling the entire fabric of civilisation.”