THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS ... Book Review No. 35 is The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which is the topic of conversation at this 11-D post. On one hand, a collection of case notes from the Bay Area of northern California is hardly analysis of a nationally representative sample, as several of the commenters noted; and the reader must take on trust the authors' assertions that the individuals whose stories are highlighted provide a reference set of stylized facts for the effect of divorce on the children. The book is written for a general audience without the crosstabs and correlation analyses of basic social science that might lend some support to the authors' principal findings. On the other hand, this is a collection of case notes from the Bay Area of northern California. Consider Ann Coulter's characterization of California as a "perfect petri dish" of Left-Democratic policies. In that petri dish, the Bay Area would have to be one of the bluest colonies of enthusiasm for such policies. It would be difficult to find a region more likely to be a priori supportive of experimentation in family policy, more likely to find social workers and family therapists ready to abet the new dispensation, or more likely to have schools with teachers and support staff attuned to any coping problems that arise in the kids. That region is also one of the more prosperous parts of the nation. And yet. And yet. The anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that kids from a part of the nation most likely to be successful at implementing the new dispensation are troubled, well into adulthood.

The book's treatment of children from comparable intact families is interesting. The authors suggest such children have an easier time making the transition to adulthood and to establishing families of their own. Whether that is because those children had an easier time completing college (child support ends at 18) or because those children saw just enough tension in their parents' marriages as to be alert to the possibility that there are some truly messed up people on the mating market the authors don't tell us. The policy suggestions are a bit anticlimactic. After a thrill ride through substance abuse, infidelity, and business failure, we get ... a suggestion that public policy provide support for a parent to stay home with the young children ...??? The authors provide no elaboration on how to implement such policies without fostering resentment in the childless who might be called upon to pick up the slack, or who might voluntarily pick up the slack so as to get a leg up on the promotion ladder. Neither do they think throught the implications of the Say Aggregation Principle on the effect of higher female labor force participation on the price of goods used in households.