LE DIVORCE by Diane Johnson

You'd think that a book made into a Kate Hudson movie would be somewhat frivolous. However, Diane Johnson's Le Divorce was actually a National Book Award Finalist, and I can understand why. The wry commentary on the differences between French and American culture make this book worth reading and keep it from settling into overwrought melodrama. The author comes down hard on the French for their nonchalance toward marital infidelity and their treatment of women as somewhat less than equal to their male counterparts. An American woman in Paris gets even less of a fair shake. Roxy is a Californian married to a Frenchman and is pregnant with her second child. When her husband leaves her, Roxy's younger sister Isabel comes to help out. However, Isabel's story soon overshadows Roxy's as she becomes involved with Roxy's uncle-in-law, Edgar, a married statesman in his seventies. Isabel knows that the affair will end badly but broadens her horizons while trying to keep up with Edgar's televised observations on world events. Isabel's odd jobs provide further intrigue—organizing papers for an eminent American writer, babysitting for former CIA agents, walking a Frenchman's dog—and a panorama of characters. When a possibly valuable painting becomes a point of dispute in the property settlement for Roxy's divorce, both families exemplify how greed trumps courtesy.