AT HOME IN THE WORLD by Joyce Maynard

At Home in the World is the mesmerizing memoir by Joyce Maynard that chronicles her devastating, all-consuming relationship with  renowned novelist, J. D. Salinger.

On the surface, it seems inexplicable: why would an eighteen-year-old girl 'fall in love' with a fifty-three year-old man?  But now, having read the book, I feel  I understand.

Salinger’s  first letter seems innocent—he was a fan of  her New York Times essay, "An Eighteen-year old Looks Back on Life" and "cautions that a glimpse of fame can distract a writer."

The letter‘s sentiments made  her feel as if he saw her spirit, gave her a feeling of value, validated her talent and herself.  This is intoxicating.  In a sense, too, Salinger  tries to save her from—to quote Lady Gaga—"the fame monster" (of which he knows plenty).

But Maynard also had much in common with Salinger—both writers, both from New England, both felt like outsiders.  Moreover, "this stranger . . . seems to know me," she writes.  Brilliant, thoughtful, charming Salinger was an artist and a devotee of alternative medicine and vegetarianism.  He had a sophistication and knowledge of the world he wished to  bestow on her.

As for Maynard, she had a precociousness and a maturity beyond her years, along with her sense of alienation.  She is also needy (who among us does not need or want love?).  She is anorexic and bulimic.  Yet she wins prizes and accolades, writes magazine articles; gains kudos from New York intellectuals.

All that said, Salinger—the grown-up—should not have allowed this ‘friendship’ to go further.

One wonders what Maynard's parents (her mother, especially) were thinking.  She wonders, too, in the scene before her first weekend trip to Salinger's home: "I have tried to imagine what was going on in my parents' minds. . . .  Nobody suggests this is a bad idea or questions what might be going on in the mind of a fifty-three year old man who invites an eighteen-year-old to come and spend the weekend."

Perhaps they were naive or, as Maynard says, filled with pride.  This was in 1971.  As a society, we now more quickly recognize child abuse or the potential for it.  

As a reader, I am fascinated by the poetic symmetry in Maynard’s life, which can only be regarded as fated.  For instance, her description of her father might also describe Salinger in the early stages: "courtly and dapper and charming."

In its essence, theirs is a father-daughter relationship:  Salinger gives young Joyce advice about her writing career, about life.  He makes suggestions.  Then, later, they are commandments—he controls what she eats (very little), wears, writes, whom she befriends.  Everything is subject to his approval.

When he abruptly  ends the relationship, Maynard desperately tries to convince him otherwise.  (In truth, I read of the break-up with relief.)

Add to the mix, a flirtation of sorts between Salinger and Maynard's mother—which may have contributed to the "dissolution" of the relationship—and you have a sad, distressing situation for all concerned.

At fifty, Fredelle Maynard—an author  and “a Harvard Phd”—was at “an age more appropriate for receiving the attention of a fifty-three-year old."  Years earlier, when she was nineteen, Mrs. Maynard had wed a man who was twenty years her senior.  Slim, tall, and blond, Max Maynard was "courtly and dapper and charming." That marriage was now also headed for “dissolution.”

The writing is in the present tense, which heightens the book’s intimacy.   This tense—the historical present—also gives a sense of immediacy, of overwhelming understatement.    Once you begin to read At Home in the World, however, you will not stop.  The book is so engrossing.  It is a cautionary tale young girls/women ought to read: the lessons related in this book, we may all benefit from.

In the afterword, Maynard states that she auctioned off J.D. Salinger's many letters to her.  But, I wonder, what happened to her letters to him?  Does she know?  Or can we guess that Salinger burned or destroyed them?

At Home in the World forever links Joyce Maynard's name with J. D. Salinger’s.  We can perceive it as tarnishing his literary legacy; or that the book provides  a more complete portrait of him. 

"If I tell what I do, nobody else can expose me,” Maynard writes.  “If I live my life in a way I'm not ashamed of, why shouldn't I be able to talk about it?  I am surely not the only woman who made herself throw up every day, or flew into a rage at her children, or felt abandoned by love.”

--Yolanda A.  Reid





For more info, visit these websites:


http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/travel/in-guatemala-a-torturous-drive-to-a-remote-eden.html?pagewanted=1&ref=joycemaynard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Maynard

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/books/29salinger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/archives/collections/complete_holdings/ead/html/
maynard.shtml#series7

http://books.google.com/books?id=veTPZA9TWxsC&pg=PA50&dq

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS by Joyce Maynard

Reading Domestic Affairs by Joyce Maynard is like being enveloped by a big warm blanket for the duration.  The book is based on Maynard's essays written for her then-syndicated newspaper column.  She writes about her children, diapers, potty training, the time her mother knit a miniature sweater--with toothpicks--for a toy bear.

Her writing is amicable, soothing, warm--as if we were seated in a kitchen, nibbling on a Sunday brunch of warm cocoa and orange marmalade on French toast, as we chat about our lives.  And yet, it is cogent and cohesive; her themes, perceptive, well-developed.  Her writing is a bit wordy. But I like it.  She writes that her writing is just about her life.

“Now,” she writes, “I document  ordinary daily life.”

But it is charming and absorbing, to peek into Maynard's life. She grew up in a small New England town, more rural than suburban.  Making pie crusts was both a hobby and a passion.  (“I know by heart the Joy of Cooking recipe for blueberry muffins and the names of all the seven dwarfs and eight reindeer.”)

Maynard writes about the births of her  three children, the perennial balance of work and family, and  her childhood home.  A few of the chapters include other topics, such as "Babysitter Problems,"  Christmas in her household, tomato sauce, dolls and doll-houses, "How I married Steve," "Baby Love," and a wistful look back at her sixteen-year old self.

In an iconic anecdote, Maynard describes her first meeting with Peg, the woman who was to make her slipcovers: “.  .  . Because I was still pretty busy getting the children out the door to preschool and second grade, getting the lunch boxes packed, the library books gathered up, I had to ask Peg to wait a minute.”

Once the kids were dispatched to school, she said to the slipcover maker, “I'm sorry. . .  It's pretty hectic around here in the mornings.  Getting three children dressed and out the door. . .”

To which Peg replied, "I know. . . I had nine."

 A precocious child, Maynard first published at age fourteen.  At eighteen, she wrote the celebrated  New York Times Magazine essay, "An Eighteen-year Old Looks Back on Life"--to be perceived thereafter as the ‘voice of her generation.’

Later, her memoir At Home in the World revealed she had lived with renowned novelist J. D. Salinger for almost a year.  He was fifty-three years old; she was nineteen!

Domestic Affairs is a lovely, likable book that “validates”—to use Maynard’s word—mothers, babies, children, family life—all things domestic.  The anecdotes are endearing: when she makes tomato sauce, or spends an hour readying the kids to play in just-fallen snow only to return indoors after “exactly eight minutes.”  Or when she reads the story of Babar the elephant to her young son.  The book feels warm, cuddly, comfy—like a teddy bear or like “the Lazy-Boy” recliner chair she once coveted.

Whether unconventional or traditional, Joyce Maynard’s life is full, rich, interesting.

--Yolanda A.  Reid

Check out this article by Joyce Maynard:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joyce-maynard/joyce-maynard-novel_b_685191.html

And her website:

http://www.joycemaynard.com

FINDING MY BALANCE by Mariel Hemingway

Finding My Balance is the bittersweet memoir of Mariel Hemingway, an author,

yogini and former actress.  The granddaughter of the renowned adventurer and

novelist Ernest Hemingway, the author recounts watershed moments in her life,

as she morphs from young adulthood into adulthood.   We get to see her at

age 12 as she cares for her chronically ill mother.  

As a teen, she starred in films like“Manhattan”--with Woody Allen--and 

“Personal Best,” in which she plays an athlete, and “Lipstick”--with sister Margaux, 

a model and actress.  Unfortunately, as a consequence of Mariel’s success in films, 

her relationship with Margaux becomes estranged.  In fact, the only familial relationship 

in the book that’s not dysfunctional is with her father, Jack, an outdoorsman, who instilled 

in Mariel a love of nature.

Each chapter begins with a yoga pose: Warrior, Eagle, Rabbit, etc.  Mariel describes

herself as she assumes each pose.  In one chapter, she details her devotion to her

guru, Paramahansa Yogananda and how he changed her life.  She also details her

stringent/extreme diets: “I routinely skipped meals in favor of iced, blended espressos

with vanilla—no milk, no sweetener.”  Another guru (though a reluctant one) is Dr.  Peter

Evans who got her to give up coffee and to re-vamp her diet. “Two buttered eggs for

breakfast with fruit or buttered toast.”

We get to experience Mariel’s intense heartache as she copes with the deaths of her

mother, sister, and father.  Throughout these crises, yoga and meditation saved her life. 

The last crisis in the book is that of her husband’s illness and how she survived that. 

The last chapter is comprised of a series of yoga poses.

Finding My Balance is the wonderfully readable story of a woman as she teeters, at first,

within  her life and then, through yoga, stands grounded on the earth, within her skin.  

“Mountain Pose.”

--Yolanda A.  Reid

Check out Mariel Hemingway’s website at www.marielhemingway.com.  Also check out

an article on her new documentary, "Running from Crazy", about her family history at http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/health/hemingway-film/index.html.

KITCHEN CHINESE by Ann Mah

In author Ann Mah's first novel, Kitchen Chinese, the main character  gets fired from her job

and dumped by her boyfriend of eighteen months--all in the same week.

A hip and savvy New Yorker, Isabelle Lee is an independent, fashionable, modern young woman
who works for Belle magazine.  After being fired, Isabelle follows her mother's advice and
moves to Beijing, where she shares an apartment with her sister, Claire.

In Beijing, Claire arranges for an interview so that Isabelle becomes "the dining

editor at Beijing NOW. . . an English-language magazine for expats."  

The Kitchen Chinese of the novel's title is Isabelle's rudimentary Chinese--which she defines
as "Just basic conversation. . . .  Simple words I picked up in the kitchen, spending time with
my mom."  Throughout the book, she struggles to fully understand what people are saying to her.
In one scene, she overhears two women in the community bathroom talking about her.
She flees the room.

Though she looks like everyone else, in Beijing Isabelle regards herself as American.

She is constantly having to confront this issue: as she chats in the cab, with her

date Charlie, the cab driver realizes she is a "laowai" or a foreigner.  When Isabelle is introduced
to Kristin at a restaurant, and Kristin compliments her on her English, Isabelle's companion
explains, "Isabelle is American.  She grew up in New York."

Isabelle wonders, "Though I've only been in China for a few months, has my Americanness

been erased?"  This leads to an identity crisis--for Isabelle, all of China is a social experiment
that elicits themes worthy of existential philosophers and posits the question:

Are we who we perceive ourselves to be?  Or are we whomever others perceive us to be?

“As Isabelle, I am articulate, confident, even sometimes, witty; as Li Jia [her Chinese name]

I feel . . . slow, able only to understand the edges of a [Chinese] conversation."

Ann Mah, the author, is adroit and expert in her use of English.  I loved savoring the language,

the information on Chinese food, the sense of living in contemporary Beijing.  Kitchen Chinese
feels authentic (especially if you've always wanted to visit China).

Each chapter opens with a quote that references Chinese food or history, and is sprinkled with

Chinese phrases  and an eclectic vocabulary.  Of the handful of recipes at the end of the book not
one is for Chinese food.  And despite the Chinese phrases, Isabelle seems so American.

Moreover, I liked that the novel rendered the inner dynamic of a Chinese family--mother to

daughter, sister to sister.  (As a reader, I’d like to see what happens to Isabelle and Claire
in a novel sequel.)

Kitchen Chinese  is a wonderful first novel, suffused with the ambience of Beijing,

and I eagerly await any second book author Ann Mah publishes.

---Yolanda A.  Reid


Check out Ann Mah's blog at www.annmah.net.

EAT PRAY LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert

Lately, Elizabeth Gilbert is my new favorite author. Her book, Eat Pray Love, chronicles her journey out of an unhappy marriage, as well as her inward journey through meditation as she travels Italy, India, and Indonesia.   Eat Pray Love unfolds with an assortment of truly interesting characters, amid the author's personal revelations and tidbits of information on each country. 

Gilbert experiences eating-bliss in Italy with delectable pasta and pizza; devotion through meditation at her guru’s ashram in India; and  true love in Indonesia. 

Two characters emerge, both in Bali. First, Ketut Liyer, a medicine man who exudes mystery,wisdom, surprising us most when he reveals that he "shares" his wife Nyomo with his brother.

In their first encounter, Ketut reads the author’s palm.  He sums up her past, present, and future—then adds, “Someday soon you will come back here to Bali.”  So she sets out to help fulfill the prophecy by planning a return trip to Bali.

Upon Gilbert’s return, Ketut assigns her the "smile from liver" meditation.  Gilbert was a good student: the book's cover photo features her smiling a deep sentient smile--from the heart. 

The second character is Wayan, an herbal doctor in her thirties. Like Gilbert, she is a divorcee; unlike Gilbert, she was once a battered wife.  Wayan said, "To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life."

Finally, what I love about Eat Pray Love is exemplified when the author writes, "I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue."

—Yolanda A.  Reid

_____________________________

Copyright © 2013 by Y.A. Reid

Note:  This article first appeared on my other blog a couple years ago.  Eat Pray Love is such an inspirational story and book, however, that I am publishing it here as well. This is a book I read at least once a year.

  

  

  

ON BOOKS I READ IN 2012

As the end of 2012 approaches, I 've  re-assessed the books I read throughout the year. 

Some of the books I read were biographies  of  Cleopatra  and  Audrey Hepburn, an

assortment of business books, a  self-help book and a fairy tale about a girl who saves

her eleven brothers.   None of those books is mentioned on this list, however. 

Furthermore, only two of the books on this list were previously reviewed on this blog. 

Lastly, the  list includes Walter Isaacson’s  biography of Steve Jobs.   Though  this blog is

about women authors/subjects, I chose to make an exception of  Steve Jobs as he was 

such a cultural icon—changing all of our lives, including my own.

1.      Ali in Wonderland  by Ali Wentworth—This book  is a candid,  witty,  heartfelt,

at times amusing take on TV/media personality Ali Wentworth’s life (especially when  

she finds herself in absurd situations).  Ali in Wonderland  begins with the author’s

break-up with her fiancé (who had proposed in an Irish castle).  She left him. 

Imagine her distress when, six weeks later, she discovered a  message on his answering

machine that implied that he’d gotten married and was departing on a trip to the

Bahamas.

2.      Married to Bhutan  by Linda Leaming--the author's well-written memoir of a

year-long stay in Bhutan, which is—according to  Leaming--“a tiny Buddhist country”

that borders India and China.  There she taught English, learned and struggled with the

Bhutanese language,  got acquainted with their customs and met and wed her husband.

3.      My Berlin Kitchen  by Luisa Weiss—My complete review may be viewed at

http://yreidbooks.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-berlin-kitchen-by-luisa-weiss.html.

4.      Sempre Susan by Sigrid Nuñez--I really enjoy Sigrid Nuñez' writing.  She has a

thoughtful, cultivated--one might say, intellectual—approach to writing.  She rarely

chooses the obvious word.  I like that.  The night I was reading this book, I had

to look up ungemutlich--although I spent a summer trying to learn beginner-level

German, years ago.  It's a German word for messy or nasty.   So I learned

something new (though I doubt I'll EVER use this word).

Moreover, no one should be put off by the title.  "Sempre" just means always (in

Italian).  That said, the book is a memoir of Nuñez' non-romantic relationship with

author/writer Susan Sontag.  Nuñez was Sontag's personal assistant, even as she

dated/lived with Sontag's son, David.

A well-crafted and bittersweet tale, Sempre Susan is a sort of "All About Eve" for the

literati or literary set.

5.      Steve Jobs  by Walter Isaacson--I'd been a fan of Steve Jobs from the time my

mom bought our first family PC (an Apple).   So when this book was published, I felt

compelled to read it.  I got to re-live Steve Jobs' brilliant meteoric life.  Also, the dark

moments.  Though I did not know him personally, I liked Steve Jobs.   But--as with

every biography I’ve ever read--the subject (Steve Jobs) is revealed as flawed and

imperfect. Nevertheless, I loved this book.

6.      The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin--I read and really liked this book earlier

this year.  My complete review is posted at  http://www.yreidbooks.blogspot.com/

the-happiness-project-by-gretchen-rubin.html.

--Yolanda  A.  Reid

_______________________________

Copyright  ©   2012-2013 by Y.A.  Reid

MY BERLIN KITCHEN by Luisa Weiss

"I was born in Berlin in 1977, back when it was still known as West Berlin"--so writes

author Luisa Weiss in her memoir, My Berlin Kitchen.   That Berlin bore

"the pockmarks from mortar fire in the façades of many buildings and the air

smelled of coal smoke."

Three years after young Luisa was born, she and her father returned to Boston.  For years, she

traveled intermittently--spending “summers  in Italy with my mother’s family,” and winters

in Boston.  At age ten, she moved back to Berlin to live with her mother, attended high

school, then returned to Boston for college, then went onto Paris for graduate school.

It is an eclectic, international, peripatetic  life.  "So I looked for home in [my] kitchen."

As a child, Luisa spoke Italian with her mother, English with her father and the nanny--

while speaking German to the outside world.  As an adult, she speaks four languages

and seems remarkably well-adapted, flexible, and self-aware.

 "As I grew up," she writes, "moving around from Berlin to Boston to Paris to New York,

I discovered that cooking was the reliable way to feel less alone."

"...By summoning the flavors of Berlin and the foods of my loved ones, my kitchen became

my sanctuary, the stove my anchor."

Major themes of Weiss' life and character are flux--movement from city to city,

constantly adapting--and a "perpetual  homesickness."  The author acclimates herself

in each new city through food.  "And just like in Paris," she writes, "whenever I needed

some quiet time alone, I'd head to the grocery store."

From the recipes at the end of each chapter, one sees that Weiss often favors rustic

food with peasant origins.  Her favorite dish as a child was a potato vegetable soup—

"Braised Artichokes and Potatoes"--from Italy that her grandmother used to make.  Then 
there's “Depression Stew,” her father's concoction.  

Two kinds of pizza--Sicilian and Neapolitan--are featured, as well as recipes for "Tomato 
Bread Soup," "German Pea Soup," "Potato Salad" (which they seem to eat quite often in 
Germany).  Also, "Flammkuchen” or flatbread, "Apple Tart," "Quark Cheesecake," 
and "White Asparagus Salad."

My Berlin Kitchen introduces us to German cuisine.  Snacks, foods, lore, customs.

How Berliners celebrate Christmas--with lots of Christmas cookies, fruit bread, goose, and

plum cake.  Their surprising friendliness and reverence for neighbors.  How Berliners 
gorge at breakfast time.

German cuisine?  Previously, my knowledge of German cuisine was that I'd eaten

sauerkraut and hot dogs as a kid, I'd heard of wiener schnitzel  and have a faint childhood

memory of biting into liverwurst and not liking it.  So this is foreign territory for me. 

But as I read My Berlin Kitchen, I found myself thinking of trying out some of the yummy 
recipes (despite the fact that cooking is not my forté).

Moreover, I had the sense that the foods and recipes and love story comprised a modern-day

German fairy tale--in which Berlin is a romantic city, filled with Quark and Flammkuchen.

 To  Weiss, Berlin is "the linden-scented city."

She writes, "When the days start to lengthen and the trees bloom and the air fills

with the scent of linden blossoms, warming earth, and budding leaves, it

comes as such a relief, such a much-deserved reward for having survived another

bone-cold winter, that one could almost believe that Berlin was an equatorial paradise."

A beautiful portrait of the author's life emerges alongside the formerly beleaguered Berlin—

"with its overcast winter skies and inescapable history often gets the short end of the stick

when it comes to capturing the imagination of food lovers and romantics."  

To the skeptics, Weiss answers:  Berlin is romantic and a food lover's delight.  

After all, she found  two loves: Sam (who believed  true love was "a fantasy") and Max 
(whom she met in high school in Berlin, fell in love with in Paris, and wed in Italy).   
Ultimately, Weiss found  happiness, fulfillment, friends and true love in Berlin--
by following her self-declared  motto, "Be brave."

At one point,  chameleon-like Weiss discusses breakfasts as they differ in each country.

"Italians eat dry little cookies [krumiri] for breakfast," she writes.  In Boston, she eats

Raisin Bran "bathed in cold milk" or "hot cream of wheat for breakfast."  In Berlin—

where a  smorgasbord of ham, Quark, liverwurst, cheese is the norm--she eats German

"sourdough bread" shaped like "a dozen Princess Leia buns fused together in a pan."

My Berlin Kitchen  is beautifully written, poetic as well as introspective.  As readers,

we become privy to Weiss' feelings and thoughts as she decides, for example, to leave one

wannabe-fiancé (Sam) because she was unhappy.  And, of course, there is the food--
at once sumptuous and exotic and rustic.

In  summation, "When you grow up all mishmashed like I did, with an American passport 
and Italian citizenship and a birth certificate issued in West Berlin it might take a little longer 
than usual to figure out your place in the world.  You're this strange little hybrid of a person, 
easily adaptable, fluent in many languages, an outsider everywhere."

My Berlin Kitchen would go on my list of  Best Books of 2012.

---Yolanda A.  Reid

Check out Luisa Weiss' blog at www.thewednesdaychef.com and her photostream of

the many cities in My Berlin Kitchen at www.flickr.com/photos/74932844@N00/.