He, in turn, brought it along on his life's wanderings from New Jersey to Kansas and back, through three failed marriages and several careers (the once-promising pathologist ended up, in his 80's, working as an extruder operator in a plastics factory).
But several of the most powerful stories in this collection do deal with infidelity and the bitterness of failed marriages.
She lists her parents' many failed marriages, as well as her own relationships, a marriage to the singer Paul Simon and then several years spent with the Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd, who left her for a man named Scott ("the man who got the man who got away").
Both had failed marriages.
After two failed marriages, she has a husband she adores.
"We're not ashamed of having two failed marriages.
None of them planned on failed marriages or lost children or meaningless lives.
He never got over the sense of abandonment, which dogged him through two failed marriages.
She had been through two failed marriages, with four children.
