Strong Passions

“Strong Passions tells the true-life tale of a misbegotten marriage with echoes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, and the Real Housewives of New York.” – Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age“Has all the elements of a soap opera—powerful families, a tearful confession, adultery, abortion, and the fate of two innocent little girls.” – Charlotte Gray - Wall Street Journal“Astonishingly vivid.… [A] gripping portrait of how things have changed when it comes to the sexes.” – Chris Hewitt - Minnesota Star Tribune“‘He said/she said,’—the characters for and against husband and wife echo the cast of an Agatha Christie whodunit. Strong Passions is a breathless read, a story to challenge the reader’s own judgment and character.” – Major General Mari K. Eder, author of The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II“Strong Passions delivers a superb and insightful narrative of a disappointed young wife and mother who strayed into a lover’s arms in 1860s New York City. Barbara Weisberg’s rigorous detective work brings clarity to the competing accounts as she carefully teases out the characters’ emotions about love, sex, and marriage. Strong Passions is a very engrossing and sympathetic read.” – Patricia Cline Cohen, author of The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York“A suspenseful courtroom drama.… [A] page-turning glimpse into the lives of 19th-century New York’s upper crust.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review“Beautifully written, solidly researched, and singularly empathetic, Barbara Weisberg’s Strong Passions is a tour de force. There are plenty of juicy, soap opera–worthy details here, yet Weisberg is alive to their larger social and cultural contexts.” – Clifton Hood, author of In Pursuit of Privilege: A History of New York City’s Upper Class and the Making of a Metropolis“Every character feels alive; many involved believed the case could decide not just the fate of one family but the fate of marriage itself.” – Booklist“Strong Passions is that rare delight—a fascinating, beautifully written story grounded in research rigorous enough to satisfy the most exacting historian. Barbara Weisberg’s book is more than a riveting legal drama about gender and power in old New York; it is also a thoughtful commentary on the anxieties created by the shifting boundary between private behaviors and public selves that beset Americans today.” – Joan Shelley Rubin, Dexter Perkins Professor of History, University of Rochester, and author of The Making of Middlebrow Culture“The seductive first sentence of Barbara Weisberg’s riveting historical drama, Strong Passions, sweeps the reader into the vanished world of old New York. It sets the scene for a bitterly contested divorce trial that offered a rare glimpse into the lives of men and women of all classes, from tenements to gilded mansions. Strong Passions is that rare combination of page-turner and thought-provoker.” – Helen Whitney, award-winning film producer, writer, and director“The story of Strong v. Strong is fascinating, disturbing, and a page-turning dip into a divorce of the messiest sort. Barbara Weisberg marshals her facts and exposes nineteenth-century New York divorce laws and the suffering of women who experienced them firsthand.” – Deirdre Sinnott, author of The Third Mrs. Galway“Narratives about rich people behaving badly captivate readers, and this account of a lurid Civil War–era divorce should satisfy all parties.… Entertaining Victorian courtroom fireworks.” – Kirkus Reviews

Barbara Weisberg is a former television producer and the author of Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. She lives in upstate New York.