Belle Burden’s debut memoir, Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, opens in early 2020, when Burden, husband James and two of their children left New York City for their summer house on Martha’s Vineyard to wait out the pandemic. One night, Burden got a call: James, she learned, was having an affair with the caller’s wife. After Burden confirmed the affair, James declared he wanted a divorce. Soon after that, he said he didn’t want custody of their kids, the apartment or the house.
Burden was blindsided; she’d thought she had a solid 20-year marriage with a caring husband, financial security and a beyond-comfortable life. James refused to walk her through his thinking, leaving her not only bereft but also confused. The memoir’s early pages detail her search for answers as she combs through their past.
Burden recounts her and James’ meeting, when both were young lawyers at a white-shoe firm. He was steady and driven, with a slightly rebellious past; she was a shy introvert, drawn to his stability. And she describes a rarified background—she’s a descendant of Gilded Age magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and the granddaughter of Vogue editor Babe Paley, and both her parents and her grandmother divorced, leaving a legacy of alternating wealth and scarcity. Strangers can’t avoid being a primer on how the other half lives, and Burden describes a life that is undoubtedly charmed, but sometimes a gilded cage. For instance, friends from Belle and James’ club on Martha’s Vineyard split into camps, some snubbing her for daring to talk openly about James leaving, giving the sense that among the WASPy 1%, it’s bad form to admit to a less-than-perfect life.
Burden is a fluid writer. Throughout, the memoir’s tone is measured, not condemning James but seeking to understand, though the reader can draw conclusions—he behaved badly. Watching Burden grow and make a new life, and accept James’ actions without understanding them, is satisfying. The memoir also refers occasionally to an osprey couple who nest on their Martha’s Vineyard property and return every spring, a lovely metaphor. Strangers is a reminder that even for the upper class, life is a struggle; to become one’s true self in midlife is as difficult for them as it is for the rest of us.