By Cathleen Schine
Divorce at any age is difficult to say the least, but when seventy-eight year-old Joseph Weissmann tells his seventy-five year-old wife Betty that he wants a divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences," she replies, Of course there's irreconcilable differences, what does that have to do with divorce?"
So opens the novel, "The Three Weissmanns of Westport," by Cathleen Schine. When Betty is left by her husband of forty-eight years because he has fallen in love with his assistant, she is shocked and confused. Betty's two grown daughters are also left confused and anxious, as they suddenly find themselves middle-aged products of a broken home. When Betty is forced to leave her luxurious Manhattan apartment she accepts her cousin's offer to use his beach cottage in Westport, overlooking Long Island Sound. Her daughters' lives also seem to be coming unraveled, as younger daughter Miranda's literary agency is caught up in scandal and and Betty has the idea that Miranda should come with her to get away from the public eye. Practical library director and elder daughter Annie, who thinks she may be having an affair with an author feels that she should also move with them. If only to keep an eye on her impulsive sister and capricious mother and on their dwindling purse strings.
In an homage to Jane Austen, Schine has adapted "Sense and Sensibilty" and moved it to Westport, Conneticut. As the sisters try to look after their "grieving" mother, she has told all that instead of divorcing her Joseph has died, they mingle with the suburbs version of aristocracy and love starts to blossom for both of them. Annie and Miranda find themselves struggling between the demands of reason and romance.
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