It’s 1950s America and Lois, in her 20s, is making her way west. Stuck in a loveless marriage, Nevada’s laws will allow her a quick, clean divorce. All she has to do is be resident there for six weeks. So she spends her weeks at the Golden Yarrow, one of the more upmarket ‘divorce ranches’ on the outskirts of Reno, lounging by the pool or in her room. She has always had awkward relationships with the women around her, and things are no different here, as she finds herself shunned, an outsider; until beautiful, magnetic, elusive and carefree Greer arrives, taking Lois under her wing, drawing her into the fold and out on the group nights to the local bars and casinos. But Greer’s disregard for convention stretches far and, as Lois’ need for Greer’s approval grows, Lois finds her limits being put to the test. 

Despite the slow building, character driven nature of the story, it’s a quick read, broken down into short chapters. Beaird’s descriptive and evocative writing beautifully captures the small details of dress, the interiors, the Nevada landscape, climate and desert nightlife, but it’s Lois’ personal evolution, and the developing dynamic between the women, that is the heart of the story. All here for a shared reason, even if travelling on different paths, we see the small ways they uplift each other, and the small ways they kick each other down when at their most vulnerable. All on the cusp of leaving an old life behind and striding into a new one – some simply a new version of the previous one –  initially the women still judge each other, exploring what being a divorcée means to them. Lois astounds the others by sharing that she envisions her new life without a man by her side. The horror! This is the 1950s though. The story is a portrait of Lois’ personal journey; of how Greer, completely comfortable in her lack of convention, has a transformative effect, for better for worse, on the more timid Lois who, in her own quiet way, has also made her stand against settling and accepting an unfulfilling life purely for security or convenience. Exploring friendship and betrayal, loneliness and agency, the identities we create in our present and the future versions of ourselves we strive towards, this was an immersive read and highly enjoyable debut. 

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The Divorcées is published by Manilla Press on March 28th. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

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Rowan Beaird is a fiction writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio, and she currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Divorcées is her debut novel.