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Welcome to the Double X Book Club for Thursday, March 25th.

I'm Hannah Rosen, co-editor of Double X, and I have here with me today, Margaret Talbot from the New Yorker in the Washington studio.

And in New Haven, we have Emily Bazelon, the other co-editor of Double X.

Hello, Emily.

Hello.

Today we will be talking about the three Weissmans of Westport, which is a novel by Kathleen Shine, that was actually in the cover of the New York Times Book Review recently.

And the three Weissmans in the title are Betty, who's a mother who's just been divorced by her husband.

She's in her 70s. And her two daughters, Miranda and Annie.

It's a sort of Jane Austen knockoff, as many things are.

And it's based loosely on sense and sensibility.

Emily, I'll leave you to do a little bit more of a plot summary before I dig in with some questions.

The novel begins with Betty Weissman's long-time husband, Joe, deciding to divorce her.

He is leaving her for a younger woman who works in his office, and he cites irreconcilable

differences to which Betty says, well, yes, of course, but what does that have anything to do with

divorce?

That's a good line, right?

It is. However, Joe follows through with divorce? That's a good line, right? It is.

However, Joe follows through with this.

And in a kind of moment of financial distress, Betty and her two daughters decamp for a cottage in Westport that's owned by Cousin Lou, a kind of distant, benevolent kind of God, uncle figure in the book.

And then the story progresses from there.

It's about their efforts to wrestle with this new moment in their lives.

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