One of the Most Popular Books of the Year Has Some New, Famous Haters. Don't Buy In to the Backlash.

Memoir exists between conflicting perceptions and verifiable facts. When complete, unassailable truth is impossible, sincerity and emotional honesty become the closest standard. A memoir titled Strangers received major acclaim and sustained bestseller placement. It centers on a divorce during the early COVID-19 lockdown, where a husband sought separation, left for another woman, and rejected shared custody or co-parenting. The narrative also emphasizes financial vulnerability for women, including the consequences of a prenup and the risk of losing the family home. Despite generational wealth, the writer describes limited awareness of finances and describes a spouse who kept income in private accounts.

"Memoir always lives in the margins between what each party thinks happened and the few details that can be verified as undeniable fact. If a writer can't be unassailably truthful in their writing-something no one can fully do, not about their own stories-the most you can get is core emotional honesty. The best memoirs are not, then, factual. They're just sincere."

"Strangers is about Burden's divorce from Henry P. Davis, now the president of Arden Asset Management, a New York-based hedge fund that oversees billions in assets. In Burden's telling, Davis suddenly informs her that he wants a divorce at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, leaving her for another woman and also declining any semblance of shared custody or co-parenting."

"Burden was hardly aware of her own finances despite coming from remarkable generational wealth. In Strangers, she talks about the prenup she signed that would have kept Davis enriched but could have forced her and their kids out of their home. (According to her memoir, Davis ultimately backs off on trying to sell the home her kids live in full time; his new apartment didn't even have enough bedrooms for all of them.)"

"Although she had bought their two homes with her trust funds, she says, he hoarded his income in private accounts"

Read at Slate Magazine