Dan's Papers - August 29, 2008

"There is a moment in every relationship when you see the whole thing. The question is, when does the moment come? Is it the first time you see the person and instinctively know that things between you are going to work out, or fail? Is it a moment in the middle when you've experienced a loss - a parent's death, a sickness - and this person gets into bed with you and holds you all night, until you feel guilt, incredible guilt, at any time you ever questioned him? Or is it a moment toward the end, however you get there, when you realize that there is something behind this person's eyes that you were never able to touch, no matter how hard you tried?" With heart-rending wisdom and gentle explorations into the very center of the human experience. Laura Dave creates magic in her newest novel, The Divorce Party.

Two women, two ends of the love spectrum, two stories that intertwine and weave into the only story that really matters; a love story. Maggie is at the beginning of her love story; engaged to Nate Huntington, starting a restaurant and a life together. Gwyn (Nate's mother) is at the end of her love story; planning a divorce party to celebrate the life she shared with her husband that is now ending. Not everything is how it first appears. How well do they really know the men they love? Is Nate really the person he has presented to Maggie? Is Gwyn's divorce party truly the celebration she has led everyone to think it is? How are Nate and his sister Georgia really dealing with the divorce of their parents? What secrets are this family really protecting? With moving insight into the forces behind true love and brutal honesty regarding why relationships fail, Dave has produced a story that will resonate with the reader for days afterwards.

Set against the backdrop of beautiful Montauk, Dave takes the reader on a journey back in time to the hurricane of 1938. We find Champ and Anna Huntington riding out the storm and in the process finding themselves amid the destruction around them. The author clearly asserts the power of choice when determining whether a love will last or fail; love is a choice we have to keep making day after day. The author beautifully employs symbolism throughout the book, deftly utilizing literal storms to punctuate the "storms" we all face in real life. Dave also poses the picturesque house on the cliffs of Montauk to symbolize the structure and strength of the family. As children leave home to create lives of their own, what happens to the childhood home they leave behind? Literally and figuratively, Dave addresses topics of great sensitivity with an openness that is as endearing as it is thought provoking.

Laura Dave is the author of London is the Best City in America, a bestseller in the San Francisco Chronicle. Her work can also be found in The New York Times, Glamour, Self Magazine, Redbook, ESPN the Magazine, and The New York Observer. Her newest novel is certainly a magnificent addition to her body of work. Sweet and tender, intricate and authentic; this story will leave the reader slightly breathless, wishing for more moments of startling wisdom.

"He doesn't have to look hard enough to find it," she says. "Her beauty."

"It's harder to appreciate what you don't have to look hard to find."

This is a love story, plain and simple. A story of learning the true meaning of love and how loving yourself, as trite as it sounds, is the most essential ingredient.