A guest post of sorts: Kim Wright
March 29, 2010
I asked Kim Wright if there was anything she wanted readers to know as they read her book, Love in Mid Air, and this is what she had to say:
I wrote Love in Mid Air partly because after my own divorce I started looking around for books that dealt with the subject and didn’t find any that I thought were terribly realistic. Most of them showed the woman getting left….the husband walks in and announces he’s having an affair with his secretary, something like that, and then the woman is against her will forced to build a new life. But statistics show that most of the time the woman initiates divorce and after age 40 it’s the woman who pulls the trigger 2/3 of the time. I kept thinking “Where is that story? Why do they never tell the tale of the woman who has an affair? The woman who wants out?”
Another thing that bugged me about most divorce books is that they very quickly introduced the new love interest, as if the task of divorce is to immediately replace one man with another. These books had what I call the “hunky handyman” syndrome where the woman would do something like move into an old friend’s quaint mountain cottage to recover from her divorce and this perfect man would show up to repair her porch steps or prune the pear trees or something. Only he’s not really just a handyman, he’s actually something like a college professor who likes to work with his hands during semester breaks or a novelist recovering from heartbreak over the death of this wife. And by the end of the summer - surprise surprise – he turns out to be the new love interest. Again very unrealistic. My 12 year old neighbor does my yard work! Where am I going wrong?
Finally I thought a lot of divorce books were unrealistic because they didn’t acknowledge that when a woman gets divorced this has a huge impact on her circle of friends. It makes them very uneasy. They begin to question their own marriages. Some of them might stand behind their divorcing friend and others won’t. Her social life is suddenly very different from theirs. I guess my point is that divorce sets off a wave of emotions in the people around the couple and this is rarely documented in the novels I was reading. I was choosing books for my own book club and just not finding any that echoed my own experiences. So I thought I’d write one.
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It is true that most of the books show the man as initiating the divorce, and the new hunky-neighbor syndrome is pretty prevalent too. This looks like a book that I would like to try out, and I will be looking at it with a different perspective, now that I know Kim’s motivation for writing it. Thanks for this guest post!
I appreciate reading the author’s reasons for writing the book. Her novel seems to tackle the issues that are realistic with divorce, and I totally agree with her that many novels glorify the freedom after divorce and the ease of finding true love soon after.
Thanks so much for the review and for running my post…and for everyone’s comments. I’m really curious about how book clubs are going to respond to the book. And I just have to ask….what gave it away that I’m from Charlotte? Absolutely true, but I’m curious….
Kim
I love her reasons. I think she is so right. And the “hunky handyman syndrome” is a perfect description for so many books!
I guess I haven’t been paying attention but, now that I think about it, too many novels use the same plot of the “hunky handyman.” Hooray for originality in this book. It is true that changing relationships do have a ripple effect on everyone around them. Primarily divorce is looked upon as effecting the partners and the children but it also affects other family members, in-laws and friends. Good for Kim Wright for going down this writing path.
I found this post to be very eye-opening. I had never really thought of things in those terms before, but I can see that Kim has a lot of good points. Thanks for posting this. It was really enlightening!
Hi everyone:
I’m enjoying eavesdropping on this debate and must confess it was just what I hoped for when I wrote the book! Questions like “Is it selfish to put your happiness ahead of your family?” and “Is an affair ever justified?” or “What do you do with a man who refuses to go in for counseling, even when you’ve begged?” seem to hit a lot of women at a gut level.
I thought it was interesting that she commented on how divorce affects the circle of friends!
Great post Kim. That was one of the things I really liked about your book – that Elyse stood on her own, there wasn’t some man to rescue her. More to real life I think.
Hi Kim, thank you for writing this book! I read all the reviews by fellow bloggers with great interest because this is something very close to home for me. I admitted when I read Darlene’s review, I was close to tears. I’ve pre-ordered the Kindle edition of this book, which will be released in April.
Thank you, Kathy, for hosting the author! This is a good post.
Thanks, everyone, and Kathy, you’ve been a fabulous web hostess. Alice, enjoy the Kindle!
What great points, although I can’t say I have any experience with divorce or read too many “divorce novels.” I think it’s always a good thing when an author tries to look at something in a new way.
Hear, hear! Been there, done that and no hunky handyman in sight although eventually I did remarry. Completely changed my life and my circle of friends. It takes more strength and emotional stability than you think you’re capable of, but if you can just learn to stop feeling sorry for yourself and stand up to life, you’ll find depths you never knew you had.
I like that she took inspiration from divorce novels and attempted to do something different. I really enjoy authors that flip concepts around and make them their own. Thanks for the guest post.
Thanks guys, and Barbara, I relate to everything you said!
I had no idea that 2/3 of women over 40 initiated the divorce. Maybe the man is just too comfortable, no matter what state the marriage is in.
Great post, Kim, thanks for sharing your reason/motivation for writing LOVE IN MID-AIR. I’ve seen several of my friends’ (mid-40s) marriages end with the woman initiating, as you indicate is the trend. I thought that was the exception; very interesting to learn that the majority take this route. I’ll look forward to reading your novel and your creative take on it.