Divorce -Op/89

This collection of 37 interviews with divorced men and women, lawyers, mediators, judges and counselors emphasizes the wrenching emotions inherent in divorce, but these anecdotes provide no real enlightenment about the causes of marital breakups. Feifer, a writer (Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb) who went through his own divorce, makes no claims of expertise or comprehensiveness, but states that recounting his personal experience eased the pain. Pain relief seems also to have been the motivation of his interviewees, who, with few exceptions, are confined to middle-and upper-middle-class whites. The intervention of counselors and mediators made for better relationships between divorced parents and their children; but it is obvious from the comments of the lawyers and their disillusioned clients that the confrontational and occasionally vengeful tactics of the attorneys did more harm than good. (Aug.)