The Divorce Diaries

The Divorce Diaries

Funny, honest, confronting, The Divorce Diaries is a compelling and tragi-comic memoir of a marriage break-up.

‘I hear you’re divorced?’ a friend greets me. ‘Congratulations!’

Quigley on writing The Divorce Diaries:
The few years before I left my marriage were some of the hardest in my life. It’s never a good time to call quits on a marriage. What finally drove me to leave was fear. Fear for my safety, fear of the future – and fear that I’d end up hating the person I’d loved.

After I’d moved out of our shared home and into a tiny temporary apartment in the heart of Berlin, waiting for the divorce to come through, I began the difficult process of recovery. Part of this process, for me, was writing about what I’d been through, and what I was still experiencing: grief, disappointment, loneliness – plus, finally, a kind of acceptance. And so The Divorce Diaries was born. I started this as a monthly column, and the column gradually evolved into a book: a deeply personal memoir, sometimes serious, sometimes funny, with all the emotional ups and downs set against the colourful bohemian backdrop of my adopted city, Berlin.