Belle Burden gets a phone call: “Your husband is having an affair with my wife.”

Belle confronts her husband, James. “He said: I thought I was happy but I’m not. I thought I wanted our life, but I don’t…. I feel like a switch has flipped. I’m done…. You can have the house and the apartment. You can have custody of the kids. I don’t want it, I don’t want any of it.” (p. 14-15)

After 20 years of a seemingly happy marriage and three kids, James–a hedge fund manager–opts out of everything. Belle–a pro bono lawyer–is stunned and tries to understand how her Life just got completely upended. She asks James to tell her what she did wrong. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” (p. 16). Belle begs Hames to do therapy with her on Zoom. He refuses and stops answering Belle’s phone calls.

Strangers chronicles Belle Burden’s struggle to understand how her happy marriage to a man she loves…blew up. Belle, who should have known better, gets burned when James brings out the prenuptial agreement she signed before she married him. James considers completely ruining Belle financially.

“I fell into a deep well of despair and shame. I could no longer see the road ahead of me. I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t get out of bed. It was the same paralysis I felt in the first weeks after James left, but it felt much darker. When I closed my eyes, I saw myself hanging from the rafter in my bedroom.” (p. 227)

I was drawn into Belle Burden’s nightmare. The husband Belle loved and thought she knew turns out to be a complete stranger who rejects the 20 year marriage–and the three children–Belle and he shared. This is a harrowing memoir shows how strange Life can be. GRADE: A