Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage [Large Print]

By Belle Burden

Book Overview

A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage--an aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joy

"Riveting...examines the very nature of intimacy."--Joyce Carol Oates

It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn't.

In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together--building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.

In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was--someone whose nickname was "Belle the Good"--gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.

With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.

• Format: Paperback
• Large Print: Yes
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GJNMGCHJ
• ISBN13: 9798217412242
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Random House Large Print Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Raw, Honest, and Moving

As a particular kind of reader and a particular kind of person, I had to overlook some of the author's background on this story. Since the breakup took place in March 2020 and the events recorded more or less wrapped up in the fall of 2023, the narrative is full of references to covid, lockdown, and masks. I could have done without that but I do understand that the author's tragedy took place during that time frame and it is obvious that, being a resident of the state of New York, she was required to buy into the whole thing. What prevented me from shutting down was that she did not become political, even a little bit. Okay. Color me pleasantly surprised. Past that, it's ever so slightly annoying that she's coming from the perspective of wealth and privilege ... descended from the Vanderbilts, the granddaughter of icon Babe Paley. But that is not laid on too thick; it is, after all, her story and that is her heritage. What caused me to give the book five stars was what I sensed as Belle's humility, which I also sensed is genuine. She acknowledges, in hindsight, where she might have gone wrong in the marriage and in how she conducted herself within it. She also acknowledges her beloved husband's struggles in his early life which may have contributed to his betrayal of her and their children in such a brutal way. She does not gloat about her eventual triumph and success, not just with the publication of her article (and eventually this book), but also with her rebuilding of her life and awaking to see it as something better than she had before the death of her marriage. Overwhelmingly I was touched by her enduring love for this man who turned his back on her. I admire her for that and I felt real sorrow for what they lost as a couple and as a family. At the same time, I am happy for her reality today and I sincerely thank her for her honesty in sharing this intensely personal story. I will not soon forget it.