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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage
Moderate: Grief
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
reflective
sad
Poet Maggie Smith’s beautifully written memoir is about “a woman coming home to herself,” coming to terms with the very difficult breakup of her marriage. A lot of this story is difficult and sad, but it is also one of triumph, as we follow Smith’s slow, steady transformation from a woman lost, disillusioned, and bereft to one who is strong, happy, and fulfilled. The title comes from the final line of Maggie Smith’s most famous poem, “Good Bones”:
“ . . . Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
The story of Smith’s journey “home” is brilliantly related through an inventive structure that includes the presentation of actual events, anecdotes, quotes, notes on the “characters” (as though from the point of view of an omniscient narrator), metaphors that stop you in your readerly tracks, as well discussions of form and metaphor and art. Smith discusses memoir as both the art of memory and the art of curation, and she distinguishes between narrative arc as taught in school vs. lived experience. “Plot is what happened, and what happened is one thing. What the book—the life—is about is another thing entirely.” “It’s a mistake to think of one’s life as plot,” she writes, “to think of the events of one’s life as events in a story. It’s a mistake. And yet, there’s foreshadowing everywhere, foreshadowing I would’ve seen myself if I had been watching a play or reading a novel, not living a life.”
Smith’s transformation, and our understanding, is achieved through reiteration and various juxtapositions of events, reflection, and soul-searching. For her, the process of writing is the method by which self-exploration and meaning-making happen. She unpacks the truth, bit by bit, as though opening a series of nesting dolls, one after another after another. And like nesting dolls, Smith writes, we carry all of our earlier selves inside us. The writing is just gorgeous throughout. I challenge anyone to read this book without highlighting, underlining, or penciling asterisks and exclamation points in the margins.
Smith often writes that she’s trying to tell the truth, to both herself and the reader. But at the same time, she acknowledges that she is not telling us everything. Some of it is hers alone. This can be a little frustrating to the reader. After all, we know the difference between memoir and exhaustive autobiography. We accept whatever and how much the writer wants to tell, but perhaps don’t want to be reminded that we’re not getting the whole story. And some may be, at first, put off by the seeming redundancies in the narrative. However, I’ve come to see these as necessary to revelation, to the writer’s unfolding self-realization. Because “you never step in the same river twice.” Because every time you look back on an event, you’re a different person doing the looking. And that’s all part of the very complex story — and meaning — of a life.
Best of all, Smith gives us all a way of looking at our own lives with a new or renewed appreciation and understanding, to see the beauty in every life. She teaches us to recognize the constant interplay between art and life, how each one informs the other. “Life, like a poem, is a series of choices,” Smith reminds us. And, as she so expertly puts it: “If we knew nothing of jays or wrens or sparrows, we’d believe the trees were singing, as if each tree has its own song. The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.”
Thank you to Atria/One Signal Publishers and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review. (To be published April 11 2023.)
“ . . . Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
The story of Smith’s journey “home” is brilliantly related through an inventive structure that includes the presentation of actual events, anecdotes, quotes, notes on the “characters” (as though from the point of view of an omniscient narrator), metaphors that stop you in your readerly tracks, as well discussions of form and metaphor and art. Smith discusses memoir as both the art of memory and the art of curation, and she distinguishes between narrative arc as taught in school vs. lived experience. “Plot is what happened, and what happened is one thing. What the book—the life—is about is another thing entirely.” “It’s a mistake to think of one’s life as plot,” she writes, “to think of the events of one’s life as events in a story. It’s a mistake. And yet, there’s foreshadowing everywhere, foreshadowing I would’ve seen myself if I had been watching a play or reading a novel, not living a life.”
Smith’s transformation, and our understanding, is achieved through reiteration and various juxtapositions of events, reflection, and soul-searching. For her, the process of writing is the method by which self-exploration and meaning-making happen. She unpacks the truth, bit by bit, as though opening a series of nesting dolls, one after another after another. And like nesting dolls, Smith writes, we carry all of our earlier selves inside us. The writing is just gorgeous throughout. I challenge anyone to read this book without highlighting, underlining, or penciling asterisks and exclamation points in the margins.
Smith often writes that she’s trying to tell the truth, to both herself and the reader. But at the same time, she acknowledges that she is not telling us everything. Some of it is hers alone. This can be a little frustrating to the reader. After all, we know the difference between memoir and exhaustive autobiography. We accept whatever and how much the writer wants to tell, but perhaps don’t want to be reminded that we’re not getting the whole story. And some may be, at first, put off by the seeming redundancies in the narrative. However, I’ve come to see these as necessary to revelation, to the writer’s unfolding self-realization. Because “you never step in the same river twice.” Because every time you look back on an event, you’re a different person doing the looking. And that’s all part of the very complex story — and meaning — of a life.
Best of all, Smith gives us all a way of looking at our own lives with a new or renewed appreciation and understanding, to see the beauty in every life. She teaches us to recognize the constant interplay between art and life, how each one informs the other. “Life, like a poem, is a series of choices,” Smith reminds us. And, as she so expertly puts it: “If we knew nothing of jays or wrens or sparrows, we’d believe the trees were singing, as if each tree has its own song. The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.”
Thank you to Atria/One Signal Publishers and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review. (To be published April 11 2023.)
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
In one of the most uniquely structured and profoundly written memoirs I’ve ever read, Maggie Smith reminds us to come home to ourselves. That we are enough exactly as we are.
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
funny
medium-paced