Shaved Meats, Piled High, September 2017
My Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House
I have always walked a lot, but in January of this year, I traded in my not-so-clean-diesel VW for a sum of money that allowed me to remodel a bathroom and now I walk A LOT. Luckily, my neighborhood has an insanely high Walkscore (92) and the weather is kind to walkers most of the year. My most frequent route takes me east -- toward the gym, the grocery store and, every six weeks or so, the local salon. (If I don't get my eyebrows tinted, the upper third of my face sort of disappears.) And although I vary the route, there are three houses along the way that I love. Rowhouses, like almost every other house in this neighborhood. But each is pristine in its own way, so perfectly maintained that I am dying to see the interiors.
In my family of origin, I was the messy one. And, although I've upped my game quite a bit to the point where cleaning my kitchen is almost a form of meditation for me, in a field that comprises my mother, sister and me, I will always be the show horse of neatness. For one thing, I live with a 7-year-old and a hoarder. But let's be fair: I also, like Mona Melendy, step out of my shoes and leave them everywhere.
But I know something now that has eluded me for a long time -- I simply don't care enough to have a perfect house. If I did, I would. I would find the time to garden, I would stay on top of maintenance. I would putter outside as I do inside. Maya Angelou famously said, "When someone shows you who are you, believe them the first time," but I find that can be a helpful piece of advice to turn on yourself. If you yearn to be something you're not, maybe now's the time to give it up? Or at least be honest about what's keeping you from accomplishing the things you think want to accomplish.
House projects, our bodies, our endless pledges to pursue some form of self-improvement -- it's all a distraction, right? We identify short-term quests that we can control to avoid thinking about how little we do control. The world feels so chaotic now, whatever one's politics. Yet there's no point in cultivating our gardens, per Candide, unless we really want to cultivate our gardens. Otherwise, the weeds grow back.
I think one reason I love books, as a writer and a reader, is because they offer the illusion of completion. They can be finished. Eventually -- how long, lord, how long? -- I will finish the book that I've been wrestling with this summer. It will not be perfect. No book ever is. So I will write another one. And that one, too, will be imperfect. In fact, I think if a fairy godmother appeared before me right now and offered me the chance to have one perfect book, a critical and commercial success unlike anything I have ever known -- and will never know again -- I would have to say no.
I used to pose this question to college-age students: What would you say if I told you that you could earn a life-changing sum of money for a book, but the bargain would be you would never write again. The students often said, "I would take it because I write for myself."
I would say, "Hmmm, there's a term for that kind of activity and it's not very nice." Which brings us to Mrs. Fletcher and my other recent reading.
READ/READING: Mrs. Fletcher, Tom Perrotta; Morning Star: Growing up With Books, Ann Hood; Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng; Glass House, Brian Alexander; Scandals of Classic Hollywood, Anne Helen Petersen; If I Die Tonight, Alison Gaylin.
REREADING: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Oompa Lompas are slaves. There's really no way to rationalize this. So I'm just going to explain it to my daughter when we get to that part.
ME, ME, ME: SUNBURN has received its first official review, a starred rave from Kirkus. "[Y]ou can tell how much fun the author had updating the classic noir tropes, and it's contagious. Plotty, page-turning pleasure plus instructions on how to make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich and how to stab a man in the heart." At the Baltimore Book Festival on Sept. 23, Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood and I will demonstrate the former, but not the latter.
Laura Lippman
September 2017