The Great Divorce - by Ilyon Woo (Paperback)

About the Book

Ilyon Woo's "The Great Divorce" is a dramatic, richly textured narrative history of early America's most infamous divorce case. A young mother singlehandedly challenged her country's notions of women's rights, family, and marriage itself--all in a bid to win back her kidnapped children from the celibate, religious sect known as the Shakers. Pulling together the pieces of this saga from crumbled newspapers, Shaker diaries, and long-forgotten letters, Woo delivers the first full account of Eunice Chapman's epic five-year struggle. A moving story about the power of a mother's love, "The Great Divorce" is also a memorable portrait of a rousing challenge to the values of a young nation.

Book Synopsis

Ilyon Woo's The Great Divorce is a dramatic, richly textured narrative history of early America's most infamous divorce case. A young mother singlehandedly challenged her country's notions of women's rights, family, and marriage itself--all in a bid to win back her kidnapped children from the celibate, religious sect known as the Shakers. Pulling together the pieces of this saga from crumbled newspapers, Shaker diaries, and long-forgotten letters, Woo delivers the first full account of Eunice Chapman's epic five-year struggle. A moving story about the power of a mother's love, The Great Divorce is also a memorable portrait of a rousing challenge to the values of a young nation.

Review Quotes

"Modern Americans, bombarded with stories of celebrity divorces, probably assume that the tabloid breakup is a recent phenomenon. This lively, well-written and engrossing tale proves them wrong."--The New York Times Book Review

"Woo captures the drama and many ironies of Eunice's story, admiring her courage without adopting her view of the Shakers as unmitigated villains."--The New Yorker

"Provocative...Woo vividly tells the story of the Chapmans' broken family, beginning with a dramatic sentence worthy of Stephen King...Woo tells [this story] in nuanced and absorbing detail."--Elaine Showalter, The Washington Post

"Ilyon Woo's The Great Divorce is much more than a fascinating account of a woman's trailblazing battle for her children. By delving so deeply into the sources, Woo brings the past to life in all its wonderful strangeness, complexity, and verve. This is what history is all about."--Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the National Book Award-winning In the Heart of the Sea

"Ilyon Woo has taken the stuff of obscure history and transformed it into a gripping drama that resonates with our own world. Though she lived in the 19th century, Eunice Chapman reminded me of Erin Brockovich--a woman on a mission who fights like a tigress for what she believes in. Woo has an eye for the telling detail, and a prose style as elegantly spare as a Shaker chair. The result is a heart-warming, finely written story of one woman's battle against fanaticism, a story that has particular resonance today."--Simon Worrall, author of The Poet and the Murderer

"American history, law, religion, and politics all come alive in this poignant account of an abandoned woman's rescue of her children in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Ilyon Woo gives us the unfolding drama of the first and only legislative divorce in the history of New York as part of a larger struggle for civil identity and women's rights. It is not enough to say that this story of Eunice Chapman's fight against injustice is well told. Ilyon Woo tells a story that every American should want to read."--Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor of Law, Literature, and Criticism, Columbia University and author of The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820

"A gripping read. Ilyon Woo is a scholar who draws on an impressive array of primary sources, but her lively prose is anything but scholarly. That Woo succeeds in making the reader sympathize with Eunice Chapman is not surprising; that she also makes the reader feel empathy for the Shakers and the troubled James Chapman is a measure of her masterful and sensitive storytelling."-- Glendyne Wergland, author of One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793-1865

"Ilyon Woo presents the earliest child custody laws of this country with vivid relevance...[Woo] creates a tactile portrait of life nearly 200 years ago...both legal and feminist details are fascinating...Eunice has all the splash and charisma of a modern celebrity."--Holly Silva, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A myth-smashing tale...It would have been easy to tell this story as a polemic or a melodrama, but Woo never lets us settle into mere indignation or pity."--Anne Trubek, The Barnes & Noble Review

"This biography makes a movie-worthy story of [Chapman's] struggle to reclaim her children and her destiny."--Meredith Maran, More

"In addition to providing an enthralling account of Eunice's early life, marriage, and legislative campaign, woo offers a detailed look at the Shakers' communal way of life. . .Woo writes with verve."--Pamela H. Sacks, Worcester Telegram & Gazette

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About the Author

Ilyon Woo holds a B.A. from Yale College and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and is the recipient of fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society and the National Endowment for the humanities, among many others. She lives with her family in Manhattan.