Other Men's Daughters: What about the other side of the story?

The short final section, part !V, of Richard Stern's novel Other Men's Daughters (1973) brings the protagonist, Dr. Robert Merriwether, and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Cynthia, to a mountain retreat near Boulder, where he's articipating in a summer seminar - oh, the perks of academic life at its highst levels! - and living in apparent idyllic bliss post-divorce. This section is full of ominous hints: It opens w/ the son of the owner of the sublet house showing up at the door and rummaging through a closet to collect his stowed-away shotgun, that he claims to need to protect his current dwelling from vandals, Merriwether goes on a long hike up to a glacier viewpoint w/out nearly enough food or clothing and ges so exhausted in the cold and altitude that he almost can't get back, Cynthia flies to California to clear the field for visits from Merriwether's two younger children. But guess what? Everything works out! Great relation w/ the two younger children, everything seems to be going well between Merriwether and Cynthia, and, as the end, attending one of the seminars, he gets some insight that will help him get a jump start on his current writing project, a popular-science book on nuerology (I think). So it all works out for the guy who walks out on his marriage and his family and shacks up w/ a student half his age. Very nice; and it's too back there's nothing in this novel, not even a hint, from the woman's point of view because I don't think it worked out so well for wife, Sarah. But also guess what: Sarah has the last work, in a sense. Take a look at popular and literary fiction over the past 40 years, since the publication of Stern's novel, and see who's story is told most often, by a long, long shot - recently, for example, by Cusk and Ferrante and farther back by I don't know how many thousands of other writers (Sue Miller, Doris Lessing, it''s almost ridiculous to try to make a list). Stern's novel is almost forgotten. Others have had their say.