Dawn O'Hara (the girl who laughed) by Edna Ferber

I liked this a lot, it was very well written, with a spark :-) It's an old book, but it's still a very enjoyable reading. The first chapters made me think of Sophie Kinsella: now, it's not at all the same thing, but this book is a century old, so maybe she was the Kinsella of those times :-p
The story: when Dawn was 20 she worked for a newspaper in New York, and there she met great reporter Peter Orme. She was totally charmed by this man and she married him because she was young and she had no experience of the world. Already the "hand that always shook a little" is something worrying, but then Dawn goes on describing him "never was a girl so dazzled, so humbled, so worshipped, so neglected, so courted. He was a creature of a thousand moods to torture one". Dawn was so young, she fell for this guy and she would found excuses for everything: his drinking, his "hot flashes of uncontrollable temper", the "fits of abstraction and irritability", as she put it "my worshiping soul was always alert with an excuse"
A few months and they got married, and in less than a year she regretted it. He got worse, tired of her, drinking more, shaking more; he neglected his work and got fired. He went home and got angry at her. She was thinking already of divorce, as soon as he was well again and back on his feet, but Peter disappeared for days and came back a madman. Ten years in an asylum for him.
Dawn struggled to move on, she kept her work, she would laugh instead of crying, using her sense of humour as a shield; at 28 she was a nervous wreck, ended up in a hospital and her sister Norah came to take her home with her, in Michigan. Living with Norah, her husband Max and their children was wonderful but she was still a nervous wreck, so Max called for help. His friend Doctor Ernst Von Gerhard, the famous nerves specialist. He is serious, with steady hands and a rare smile, very solemn but with twinkling eyes.
Dawn obeys to them all, she eats, she rests, she walks, until she's tired of doing nothing and wants back her job, but New York's life would be bad for her, so Von Gerhard suggests Milwaukee where he lives, apparently the most German city in America. She goes and she loves it.
She works for the local post, and finds some friends: Blackie from work, and Frau Nirlanger, a noble Austrian who left all to marry a young common man who treated her badly.
She likes the Knaupf couple and it'll be hard on her when they'll have to close the boarding-house. She getson beautifully here, but the knowledge of not being free is a great burden. The love between her and Von Gerhard grows by the day, but she feels she can not divorce a defenseless man, until it happens that Peter is set free and comes looking for her. It's hard but she has Ernst and Blackie to help her, and also Norah comes. Peter is nasty and selfish, but also still mad. He can talk and reason, yes, but he's mad nonetheless. During a car drive with Blackie and Dawn he shows it. Wisely Blackie didn't let him drive, but then Peter told him to go faster until he tried to take the wheel and they crashed: Peter and Blackie die (Blackie had but a few months to live anyway) and well, Dawn is free. She leaves the job to concentrate on her book-writing, and plans to go to Vienna with Ernst. She says goodbye to her friends in Milwaukee and goes away with him :-)