"Berger excels at showing her characters to be people who were raised in old-fashioned homes who are now confronting unconventional, risky life choices-and dealing with the stresses and absurdities that follow their decisions. A smart, nuanced novel about open marriage . . ."-Kirkus Reviews"Sande Boritz Berger sets a 1970s Jersey housewife on a provocative collision course in Split-Level, a sharp portrait of female empowerment. Through sensitive insights, a woman finds an honest version of herself after realizing that her ideas on the nuclear family have made her erase vital parts of her identity."-Foreword ReviewsIn Split-Level, set as the nation recoils from Nixon, Alex Pearl is about to commit the first major transgression of her life. But why shouldn't she remain an officially contented, soon-to-turn-thirty wife? She's got a lovely home in an upscale Jersey suburb, two precocious daughters, and a charming husband, Donny. But Alex can no longer deny she craves more-some infusion of passion into the cul-de-sac world she inhabits. After she receives a phone call from her babysitter's mother reporting that Donny took the teen for a midnight ride, promising he'd teach her how to drive, Alex insists they attend Marriage Mountain, the quintessential 1970s "healing couples sanctuary." Donny accedes-but soon becomes obsessed with the manifesto A Different Proposition and its vision of how multiple couples can live together in spouse-swapping bliss. At first Alex scoffs, but soon she gives Donny much more than he bargained for. After he targets the perfect couple to collude in his fantasy, Alex discovers her desire for love escalating to new heights-along with a willingness to risk everything. Split-Level evokes a pivotal moment in the story of American matrimony, a time when it seemed as if an open marriage might open hearts as well.
Industry Reviews
2019 Readers' Favorite Awards Finalist in Fiction (Women's)
"How impressive Split-Level is: wonderfully rich with details, fluent and fluid, with an inevitable-yet-unexpected ending, inspired throughout is its portrait of a woman whose essential life is an unconscious double-ness/split-ness."
-Joyce Carol Oates, author of We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde
“Ah, the 1970s. Miniskirts. Suburbia. Tie-dye and the freewheeling era of the so-called open marriage. Boritz Berger's sly, smart second novel, written in prose as glorious as the era’s iconic tequila sunrise, gives us an on-the-verge-of-an-adventure heroine who comes to realize that sometimes having the life you desperately need means giving up the life you desperately want.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author of Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow
“Berger excels at showing her characters to be people who were raised in old-fashioned homes who are now confronting unconventional, risky life choices—and dealing with the stresses and absurdities that follow their decisions. A smart, nuanced novel about open marriage . . .”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Sande Boritz Berger sets a 1970s Jersey housewife on a provocative collision course in Split-Level, a sharp portrait of female empowerment. Through sensitive insights, a woman finds an honest version of herself after realizing that her ideas on the nuclear family have made her erase vital parts of her identity.”
—Foreword Reviews (five-star review)
“With humor and poignancy, Berger brings us to the depths of how frightening it is to lose all trust in those we love, and the uncertainty that all we thought we had might slide away.”
—Nahid Rachlin, author of Persian Girls and Foreigner
“In her latest novel, Split-Level, Sande Boritz Berger paints a vivid picture of the early 1970s, a time when the sexual revolution was making its way through the suburbs of America. With equal parts humor and heart, Berger explores the anguish of a marriage coming apart and how some go to any lengths to mend it.”
—Laurie Gelman, author of Class Mom
“Split-Level is a gripping, fast-paced story, perfect for readers of literary fiction who enjoy a mature, nuanced look at the complications of marital relationships.”
—Betty Hafner, author of Not Exactly Love: A Memoir
“A page-turning journey through 1970’s suburbia.”
—Elizabeth McCourt, author of Sin in the Big Easy
“In Split-Level, Berger, a keen observer of suburban angst, takes us back to the early days of the sexual revolution in the ’burbs—to the promise and reality of bed-hopping and marital bliss—as it plays out in the lives of Alex and Donny Pearl and those of a neighboring couple whose marriage is in a parallel state of decline. Hard to put down; hard to forget.”
—Barbara Donsky, author of award-winning Veronica’s Grave: A Daughter’s Memoir and the international bestseller Missing Mother
“A poignant look back on suburban post-war haze during the swinging ’70s, Berger has written a smart and unpredictably funny novel. Her protagonist, Alex, grappling with marriage, two small children, and the conflicting social mores of that time, is sure to win over your heart.”
—Susan Tepper, author of Monte Carlo Days & Nights and The Merrill Diaries
