Susan Rieger is the author of THE DIVORCE PAPERS and THE HEIRS. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School and has worked as a residential College Dean at Yale and as associate provost at Columbia. She lives in New York City with her husband, the writer David Denby.
Six months after Rupert Falkes dies, leaving a grieving widow and five adult sons, an unknown woman sues his estate, claiming she had two sons by him. The Falkes brothers are pitched into turmoil, at once missing their father and feeling betrayed by him. In disconcerting contrast, their mother, Eleanor, is cool and calm, showing preternatural composure. Struggling to reclaim their identity, the brothers find Eleanor’s sympathy toward the woman and her sons confounding. Widowhood has let her cast off the rigid propriety of her stifling upbringing, and the brothers begin to question whether they knew either of their parents at all.
When Mia Durkheim chooses Sophie Diehl, a criminal attorney, as her reluctant divorce lawyer, both women are in for a rollercoaster ride that takes them from the depths of despair to the heights of euphoria as they battle Dr. Daniel Durkheim and his team of shark-like lawyers all the way to the finish line, where a divorce decree is the final prize.
