The Divorcees

When I was growing up in the fifties, divorce was spoken about in whispers—if spoken about at all. An inveterate eavesdropper, I heard that some women went to Reno, Nevada to get a divorce though I didn’t know why. But not everyone who wanted a divorce could do that because it was so expensive.

Surprise, surprise. One more thing rich people could do that was closed off to working class women. They had to suck it up go by the rules in their state.

Rowan Beaird’s The Divorcees tells the story of Lois Gorski Saunders from Lake Forest, Illinois, who walks away from her marriage to a tyrant who is determined to control her life and takes the train to Reno, where she will live at the Golden Yarrow Ranch for six weeks, at which point she will qualify for citizenship in Nevada and can file for divorce.

The Golden Yarrow Ranch is the most respectable of the divorce ranches surrounding Reno—a mind-boggling phenomenon in this day and age. The half-dozen young women staying there are wealthy, many are east coast socialites. Lois’s Polish father is rich, too, but not the right kind of rich: he made his money with a meat packing plant—a fact Lois tries but ultimately fails to keep a secret. She’s self-conscious from day one. Her clothes are all wrong.  She’s never ridden a horse, doesn’t know how to play tennis.

Her fellow residents are somewhat predictable, but interesting nonetheless. They drink too

much, fall into the Reno party scene, gambling at the casinos, flirting with young cowboys. They go western, changing their society wardrobes for jeans and cowboy boots. Secrets are kept and revealed.

Lois’s father has given the owner of the ranch strict instructions. She is to stay in at night, put in her time. Which she does until the glamorous Greer Lang appears in a taxi in the middle of the night sporting a black eye. She dresses in men’s cotton shirts and cotton trousers.  She’s oblivious to the rules the other women are expected to keep, she comes and goes as she pleases—and nothing happens to her.

Who is she? What happened? Is she some kind of royalty?

The women compete for her attention and Lois is thrilled when Greer chooses her as her favored companion. Soon, Lois is going out every night, mesmerized by Greer’s appeal to men, drawn in by her daring, willing to follow her anywhere.

Needless to say, her devotion to Greer comes to no good end. But, boy, is the trip to that no good end compelling!

Not only is The Divorcees  great story, it’s a slice of life from another time. Baerid creates the world of 1950s Reno in detail that makes you feel the heat and hear the desert grasses rustling. It makes you feel for these young women, trapped in unhappy marriages, whose lives go awry given the freedom they long for.

Six weeks isn’t very long. But lives are changed for better and worse. You hope they’ll be okay back in the real world but you can’t be sure.