This heart-wrenching anatomy of a divorce presents a damning portrait of the family law system and its effects on one family. A real-life legal thriller based on a searing Toronto Life story that ignited a national debate, became one of the most controversial ever published by the magazine, and went on to win a National Magazine Award, The Divorce From Hell illuminates a drama in which the villain is a legal system that encourages conflict, rewards manipulation, and reinforces outmoded sexist biases.

In its examination of our culture’s prejudices about the roles men and women are expected to play when a marriage dissolves, it is also a provocative account of gender politics in our time. A unique work of personal journalism, grounded in voluminous evidence on the public record, The Divorce From Hell is a timely, searing exposé that cannot be ignored.

I challenge anyone who is divorced, considering a divorce or considering marriage to someone they don’t quite trust but somehow adore to put The Divorce From Hell down at the sensible hour of 10:30 and turn off the light. It is simply not possible. You’ll read into the small hours, your dreams will be haunted and you’ll twitch for a week because you have been to the Dark Side of our arcadian Canadian dream.”       - Globe and Mail “No one can read Wendy Dennis’ mesmerizing story of one father’s divorce and come away believing that divorce is fair, civilized, or good for children.”       - Barbara Dafoe Whitehead,         author of The Divorce Culture "Wendy Dennis has provided a very valuable insight into the rights of fathers after divorce...She should take her place alongside others who…have had the courage to speak out and…shake up some long-held erroneous assumptions…”       - The Gazette

Reaction to theToronto Life story:

CHRONICLE OF A DIVORCE FROM HELL
Margaret Wente - Globe and Mail
January 27, 1996

HOW 'THE DIVORCE FROM HELL' PRESSED ALL THE HOT BUTTONS
Patricia Best - Globe and Mail
March 16, 1996

A READER KNOWS IN GUT WHEN WRITERS GO TOO FAR
Naomi Klein - Toronto Star
march 30, 1996

Hot and Bothered is a nervy, provocative examination of male-female relationships and bedroom behavior in this age of sexual apprehension. In a style that’s both serious and scandalously funny, Wendy Dennis explores the complications of modern loving.

Unlike any previous book about sexual relationships, Hot and Bothered challenges your assumptions about what men and women seek from each other in their most private moments. Written for both sexes by a woman who likes the much-maligned male and understands the way he thinks about sex, by a writer who exposes the lies people tell in bed, and by a feminist who dares to say iconoclastic things about feminism, Hot and Bothered is a wise, witty, rivetingly honest book and an indispensable roadmap through the bewildering emotional landscape of the 1990s.