The Perfect Divorce

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, sexual violence, drug use, addiction, emotional abuse, and death.

The Perfect Divorce centralizes Sarah Morgan and Bob Miller’s relationship and divorce to explore the consequences of breaking a loved one’s trust. Sarah and Bob have been together for roughly a decade, but they no longer trust each other in the narrative present. Sarah has filed for divorce because she discovered that Bob was cheating on her. Aware that Sarah is capable of hurting those who wrong her, Bob no longer trusts Sarah after he learns that she’s aware of his infidelity. As soon as trust breaks down between the couple, Sarah and Bob are incapable of coexisting. They not only stop living together and begin divorce proceedings but also pursue elaborate plans to destroy one another. Their separate and overlapping desires to ruin each other’s lives capture the unsustainability of intimate relationships that lack trust.

On the surface, Sarah and Bob’s marriage was founded on mutual trust, secrecy, understanding, and protection. However, as the novel unfolds, Sarah’s and Bob’s respective first-person narratives reveal that Sarah has never trusted Bob, and Bob has never trusted Sarah.