The Split

by Richard Goodwin

The Split is the story of a marriage that has come apart. On an unseasonably warm winter evening in Ragland, Kansas, Ken’s wife, Elfie, announces she is moving out. The news couldn’t come at a worse time for Ken, an embattled instructor concerned about his health and struggling to finish his pedagogical masterpiece, Narrative Strategies in Contextualized English Grammar. Suddenly he finds himself living alone in a windblown farmhouse on the prairie while his wife rents an apartment in town, kickstarting a vibrant new life of her own. Missing Elfie, drinking heavily, floundering on the internet when he should be writing his book, Ken sinks lower and lower until his idiosyncratic colleague, Stu, invites him on a trip to Saipan. On that tropical island, with its white sand beaches, soaring cliffs, and rusting war relics, Ken meets Helen, a sassy, free-spirited woman who draws him from his miserable shell. The Split is a quirky comedy about separation, longevity, language, and love, by a gifted storyteller whose writing is as moving as it is hilarious.

310 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2022

About the author

Richard Goodwin is a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. The Split is his second novel. His short fiction has appeared in The Adirondack Review, Typishly, Monkeybiycle, The Cafe Irreal, Spank the Carp, and X-R-A-Y. He lives in Vancouver, Washington.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book. I enjoyed the amusing predicaments in which the main character, Ken, found himself. The characters were quirky. The descriptions of rural Kansas and Saipan were detailed and I could imagine what it was like to be there. I’ll be honest, I’m not a grammarian so the parts of the book that dealt with grammar were above my head. That being said, I loved how Ken lived and died by grammatical rules. Great sophomore effort by Mr. Goodwin.