The Great Divorce Audiobook By Ilyon Woo cover art

The Great Divorce

A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times

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The Great Divorce

By: Ilyon Woo
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
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Ilyon Woo's The Great Divorce is the dramatic, richly textured story of one of 19th-century America's most infamous divorce cases, in which a young mother singlehandedly challenged her country's notions of women's rights, family, and marriage itself.

In 1814 Eunice Chapman came home to discover that her three children had been carried off by her estranged husband. He had taken them, she learned, to live among a celibate, religious people known as the Shakers. Defying all expectations, this famously petite and lovely woman mounted an epic campaign against her husband, the Shakers, and the law. In its confrontation of some of the nation's most fundamental debates - religious freedom, feminine virtue, the sanctity of marriage - her case struck a nerve with an uncertain new republic. And its culmination - in a stunning legislative decision and a terrifying mob attack - sent shockwaves through the Shaker community and the nation beyond.

With a novelist's eye and a historian's perspective, Woo delivers the first full account of Eunice Chapman's remarkable 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.

©2010 Ilyon Woo. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2015 Audible Inc. Americas Christianity Gender Studies History Law Social Sciences United States

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This was one of my favorite reads. Highly recommended. It is meticulously researched and thoughtfully presented. It would make a perfect book for a book club.

Outstanding book

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Is well written. I know it is historical, but the story almost made me think it was fiction.

Well written

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Very interesting. My parents divorced in 1940 and my mothers experience was a mess and unfair by todays standards. Women have to fight for every right.

The he great divorce

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This woman was very much ahead of her time! A master class in perseverance and persuasion. A really interesting story! I’m

Inspiring

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The Great Divorce is a classic - The reading voice grows on you quickly. I do highly recommend.

A classic

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Interesting. I’m not a mother but I understand her fight for her children. And her spirited fight against the male establishments, religious zealots, etc. Amazing and detailed true account of a tireless woman who went to incredible lengths to do what was right in a time that was wrong. Well done. Great listen.

Favorite narrator. Excellent true historical account/story.

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