From The New York Times:
A 21-year-old college student who hasn’t spoken to her mother since high school.
A woman who cannot get along with her daughter-in-law, and who therefore has no contact with her son.
Three siblings who stopped speaking because of a disputed inheritance 30 years ago.
Family estrangement — a topic once so distressing and shameful that people hesitated to discuss it — is drawing more attention as some tell their stories and researchers delve into its causes and consequences.
Karl Pillemer, a family sociologist at Cornell University, has just published “Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them,” a book that provides something rare in this realm — actual data.