Modernism and the Challenge of Depicting Life
Modernist writers like Virginia Woolf understood the impossibility of capturing life on the page with perfect accuracy. Life, in all its complexity and subjectivity, defies neat narratives or chronological precision. Woolf experimented with time and language to reflect the fluidity of human consciousness, showing how the inner lives of her characters could not be confined to traditional storytelling structures. This challenge of representing life truthfully is a recurring theme in literature, and some writers choose to abandon conventional narratives altogether to better reflect the messiness of human existence.
In her debut memoir, No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce, Haley Mlotek takes up this challenge by rejecting the idea of life as a story. She argues that relying on stories as a metaphor for romantic or life experiences is inherently flawed. The pressure to fit one’s life into a narrative structure can distract us from the deeper question of why we feel the need to impose such order in the first place. For Mlotek, the terror of determining what story her life would be becomes a distraction from the more fundamental question of why her life needs to be a story at all.
Beyond Traditional Memoir: No Fault as Inquiry
No Fault is not a love story, nor is it a life story in the traditional sense. It refuses to conform to the conventions of storytelling, rejecting the labels of chronicle, testimony, or confession. Instead, it is a deeply personal and cultural exploration of divorce—and by extension, marriage. Unlike other recent divorce memoirs, such as Leslie Jamison’s Splinters or Lyz Lenz’s This American Ex-Wife, Mlotek’s book avoids detailing the specifics of her marriage or its dissolution. This obliqueness may frustrate readers who expect a more straightforward narrative, but Mlotek is conscious of this possibility. “Because I don’t tell stories,” she explains, “everyone thinks I have secrets.”
When her friends ask for reasons behind her divorce, she offers none, leaving the question unresolved even for herself. “As a result,” she writes, “my friends and I are alike in that none of us had any idea why my marriage ended. We are different in that they think they can find the answer, and I know I never will.” This ambiguity is central to the memoir’s design, forcing readers to recalibrate their expectations. For Mlotek, the memoirist’s true work is not to provide resolution or catharsis but to articulate the extent to which we are obscure to ourselves.
Growing Up with Divorce
Mlotek’s perspective on marriage and divorce is shaped by her upbringing. At just 10 years old, she begins advising her mother, a divorce mediator, to leave her father. Yet her parents remain in their contentious marriage until she is 19. Working in her mother’s basement office, Mlotek becomes a peripheral witness to the unraveling of numerous marriages. She describes her home as “the place where other families fell apart,” and over time, her entire world seems to revolve around divorce. “All the adults I knew were getting divorced,” she writes, “or should have been.” This environment instills in her a skepticism of marriage as an institution that imposes its structure on millions of lives, often proving ill-fitting.
Despite her suspicions, Mlotek falls in love in high school with the man she will later marry. Over the course of 12 years, their relationship remains relatively steadfast, even as their friends cycle through short-lived romances. They eventually marry to relocate from Canada to New York, but their union fractures after just one painful year. The disorienting period that follows her divorce becomes a catalyst for Mlotek’s exploration of divorce, not just as a personal experience but as a cultural phenomenon.
Exploring Divorce Through Culture
In the aftermath of her divorce, Mlotek becomes both a participant in and a theorist of divorce. Her grief inspires a wide-ranging inquiry into its cultural significance, leading her to examine films, novels, and critical studies about marriage and divorce. She watches films like An Unmarried Woman and Marriage Story, which focus on women navigating divorce. She also interrogates the remarriage plots of movies like The Philadelphia Story and Ticket to Paradise, where couples divorce only to reunite. Through these narratives, Mlotek explores the tension between the idealized happily-ever-after and the reality of marital dissatisfaction.
Mlotek’s reading extends to novels about troubled marriages, such as Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and Jamaica Kincaid’s See Now Then. She returns repeatedly to Phyllis Rose’s 1983 study Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, which suggests that readers of memoirs are driven by a desire to learn how others live, in order to inform their own lives. Yet, Mlotek’s exploration yields no easy answers. Instead, it reveals a trail of historical and imagined figures whose desires and disinclinations often misalign. Many of these characters are unhappily married, and their stories illuminate the mismatch between societal expectations and individual longing.
Marriage as an Institution and the Possibility of Change
Mlotek’s critique of marriage is not a collective indictment of the institution but a nuanced exploration of its limitations. She examines the concept of “cruel optimism,” a term coined by critic Lauren Berlant to describe how people often cling to desires that harm them. Marriage, for many, becomes an expression of this cruel optimism, as individuals pursue relationships that ultimately cause pain. Mlotek highlights the story of Audre Lorde, who attempted to redefine marriage and family when she married her friend Edwin Rollins in 1962. Both Lorde and Rollins were openly gay, and their union was a deliberate experiment to create a relationship based on mutual ideals. Though their marriage ended in divorce in 1970, Mlotek sees their effort as a microcosm of the broader human endeavor to challenge and transform institutions.
While the failure of such experiments might seem to suggest futility, Mlotek suggests that institutions like marriage can only evolve through persistent attempts to redefine them. The stories of those who attempt to build “something more than what was already familiar” remind us that change, though incremental, is possible. For Mlotek, the act of questioning and experimenting with marriage is a vital part of its potential transformation.
The Concept of “No Fault” and Its Implications
The title No Fault refers to a type of divorce obtained without assigning blame, a legal designation that has evolved over time. California was the first state to legalize no-fault divorce in 1969, while New York, where Mlotek lived, was the last to do so in 2010. This shift in legal standards reflects a broader cultural change, allowing individuals to end marriages without needing to justify their decision with accusations of abuse or infidelity. For Mlotek, the concept of “no fault” is both liberating and ambiguous. It removes the need for a clear narrative of blame but leaves room for the complexities of human intimacy.
The memoir itself embodies this ambiguity, resisting the clear delineations of fault that often structure stories. Without fault, the narrative dissolves into shades of gray, leaving readers without the comfort of resolution. While Mlotek’s approach may frustrate those who crave a more traditional narrative, it captures the messiness of real life. The title No Fault becomes a metaphor not only for divorce but also for the impossibility of fully understanding ourselves or our choices.
In reflecting on her own life, Mlotek acknowledges the ways in which she once treated love stories as prescriptive, believing that marriage would stabilize her emotional life. Her own experiences—marrying her college boyfriend, falling in love with someone else, and eventual divorce—challenge this belief. Her story, as she puts it, is simply “what happened after” she made a different choice. This formulation strips life of its narrative neatness, embracing instead the uncertainty and complexity that define human experience.
Ultimately, No Fault is a tender and thought-provoking exploration of marriage, divorce, and the stories we tell ourselves about love and life. By rejecting the conventions of storytelling, Mlotek invites readers to confront the obscurity of human intimacy and the futility of seeking clear answers. Her memoir is not a love story or a life story but a necessary interrogation of the institutions and narratives that shape our lives.