Lyz Lenz is a journalist and the author of God Land and Belabored. She has written for Insider, The New York Times, Marie Claire, and The Washington Post. Lenz also writes the newsletter Men Yell at Me, about the intersection of politics and personhood in red-state America. She lives in Iowa with her two kids.
“With This American Ex-Wife Lenz adds to her already impressive
canon of cultural criticism. . . . Through a vivid mix of research,
reporting, and personal anecdote, [she] reveals the power
imbalances inherent to traditional heterosexual marriage, and calls
for a radical act of refusal by women who have been too-long
defined by their relationships to men.”—Literary Hub
“This American Ex-Wife is a bomb, a bouquet (but not a wedding
bouquet), a memoir, a manifesto, and a total joy to read.” —Rebecca
Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me
“A tour de force, instant classic memoir-meets-manifesto . . .
Cishet love is a battlefield, and This American Ex-Wife is a
long-awaited shield. This book will rightfully end and prevent
certain types of marriages, by which I mean it will save
lives.”—Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love
“In this brave, brilliant, impeccably researched book, Lyz Lenz
offers us a clear solution to the systemic inequalities within the
institution of marriage. And it’s far more liberating than I ever
imagined.” —Virginia Sole-Smith, author of Fat Talk
“Passionate, visceral, and honest, Lyz Lenz is an
unflinching voice, and this book will stand as a monument within
our most pressing issues today in how romantic intimacy and
domestic labor intersect.”—Morgan Jerkins, author of Caul Baby
“Whether divorced, married, or single, all humans looking to
reframe, rebuild, and reshape the institutions that have only ever
served white men will find encouragement here. This is the most
important book you’ll read this year, maybe even ever. Read it and
get free.” —Rebecca Woolf, author of All of This
“It’s been more than fifty years since Muriel Rukeyser wrote, ‘What
would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The
world would split open.’ Now Lyz Lenz has written the truth about
matrimony, and the result is similarly tectonic. I loved
it.”—Laura Lippman, author of Prom Mom
“Lenz guides us to explode the dishonest fairy tales and shake off
the suffocatingly gendered expectations around love, partnership,
and domestic responsibility. This American Ex-Wife is a pleasure
and an inspiration.”—Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad
“This American Ex-Wife is both validating and necessary.”—Stefanie
O’Connell Rodriguez, Financial journalist and creator of the Too
Ambitious newsletter
“This American Ex-Wife is a lifeline. It is a counter-narrative. It
is a beautiful piece of memoir. But most of all: it is a bold and
convincing declaration that it doesn’t have to be this way. Quite
frankly, it should be required pre-marital reading.”—Anne Helen
Petersen, author of Out of Office
“Far from being a sign of failure, divorce, she argues
persuasively, can be a source of liberation. . . . A
well-researched, acerbic critique of a sacred institution.”—Kirkus
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