Stacy Morrison, Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist's Journey Through the Hell of Divorce

Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist's Journey Through the Hell of Divorce

Stacy Morrison

Simon and Schuster, Mar 15 2011, $15.00

ISBN: 9781416595571

Wannabe film writer Chris informed his wife Stacy just months after they purchased a townhouse in the exclusive Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn that their marriage was over. She was taken aback as she had no inkling this was coming especially with their new home and nine month old child. Chris remained to help with her with her post marriage life as a single mom before leaving; while Stacy began to question her worth. However, heeding her own advice at Redbook and that of her steel magnolia mom, Stacy realized her only major error was pretending they were the All American family. She moved on no longer appeasing a spouse who felt she and Zack held him back, but had the decency to stay until they were settled.

The key to this profound memoir is Stacy Morrison's heartfelt personalized trek through chaos that at times feels like a journey through Dante's Inferno as there are many unpleasant and unhappy moments. The author limits her life moral generalizations learned to small knowledge gains, which in turn makes her memoir even more relevant. Powerful, Falling Apart in One Piece is a deep look at a dying marriage as the participants go though a form of the phases of grief while wondering what they could have done differently to resuscitate the relationship. This is an honest account of a personal journey to hell and back.

Harriet Klausner