cover image A Family Divided

A Family Divided

Robert Mendelson. Prometheus Books, $37.98 (535pp) ISBN 978-1-57392-151-0

When Michael Nieland and his wife, Nancy, split up in 1987, she took the children and, according to him, almost all the well-to-do couple's possessions. They eventually agreed to share custody of the children but wrangled for years over the details and implementation of the custody arrangement and the disposition of their property. Mendelson, a former reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, argues long and volubly here for Michael Nieland's side of the case, seeking to show, through court transcripts and Nieland's personal diaries, that he was treated shamefully by his former wife and unfairly by the local family court system. Nieland's account paints his ex-wife as a conniver and the judges and court-appointed psychologists as incompetent or unethical. Yet somehow the reader is left suspecting there might be another side to the story. But even if Nieland's characterizations are accurate, little in the court transcriptions suggests he was treated unfairly--he won some battles and lost others, and when he complained about the psychologists and judges in the case, his objections were dealt with, sometimes in his favor. But in Mendelson's and Nieland's view, every victory was negligible and every defeat proof of either judicial bad faith or the perversity of the ""child custody industry."" This is a sad story, but, contrary to the promotion copy, ""fair-minded people"" will likely find that it amounts to little more than a 500-page tantrum. (Aug.)