Chance Ate Sassy

Emily Matchar's new book Homeward Bound has a lot more going for it than just the fact that it shares a name with one of my favorite childhood movies (I heart Chance). Homeward Bound is an honest look at the return to domestic art hobbies that women (and some men) have taken back up since the start of the new millennium, what Matchar refers to as the "New Domesticity."

The New Domesticity is about returning to our roots after the consumer craziness that was the 1990s, Matchar says, and a way for third wave feminists to reclaim the traditionally feminine roles and assert the worth of these downcast occupations. Moreover, the new domesticity is being embraced as a revolutionary way to stop relying on the system for food, protection, and income. It's a return to self-reliance, a la Thoreau, Also, knitting is right fun, yo.

However, there is a negative side to the New Domesticity: women are leaving the workplace in droves, convinced that the 1950s-housewife role is hip and feminist, now that the patriarchy is supposedly dead. The only problem: it's not dead, not even close. Women still don't earn as much as men and are forced out of the workplace if they decide to have families. Maternity leave, standard in all other developed countries, is pretty well nonexistent here (not to mention the recent political references to "binders full of women" and "illegitimate rape"). Still more troubling is the fact that all these women rushing back into the home are giving up the ability to earn an income, relying instead on their lifepartners, which is all well and good unless that lifepartner either a. leaves or b. becomes unemployed.

I'm a sucker for the New Domesticity, but there has always been a few things about it that leave me cold, like how going DIY is still pigeon-holed as women's work. It's all well and good to reclaim women's work and call it worthwhile, but when men still look down on it, the whole operation becomes a giant step backwards. Then, there's attachment parenting, which I've never thought was a good idea. (Be there for and give in to your kid every second? Yes, that will definitely help them learn independence and realize that sometimes they just can't get their way.)

I love so much about the New Domesticity (Hello, cooking and knitting blog...), but I love that Matchar was willing and able to shine the light on it's drawbacks. Chapter after chapter revealed women giving up their independence to become happy homemakers while their husbands paid the bills. I want to learn to can jam as much as the next person, but I am not willing to give up my status as a wage-earner to do it. I worked too hard to get here.

Everyone should grab a copy of this book. It's a fresh perspective on modern culture, politics, and feminism. When it comes to the career world, men are still eating us alive, ladies, even as so many women are proclaiming that feminism succeeded and can take a back seat. It's eye-opening and highly interesting. It says what needs to be said, and let me tell you, as a female breadwinner (who also knits) with a stay-at-home husband, I felt like a real hardcore feminist after reading this book.

Solidarity, my sisters. Let's march.

Life After Life

I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of Jill McCorkle's new book Life After Life since before the official release date. I really didn't know much about it other than that it was written by her, but that was enough information for me. I'm been a fan of McCorkle's writing since I listened to her read at the annual Chautauqua Writer's Festival a few years ago. I went with a poet from my MFA program. We two were there on a sort of scholarship, and I was in the group run by Ron Carlson, who was a great chap. I loved my group, but I had a slight twinge of longing to be in the group McCorkle ran after I heard her read. The story she read was poignant and emotional but amusing and light. She had a delightful southern accent and a way of speaking that invited the reader to sit down and stay awhile. Carlson was gruff but no less entertaining for that. I learned a lot in the few days I worked with him, but I fell in love with the writing of Jill McCorkle in that auditorium, right there in the middle of a town that seemed to have emerged from another century entirely.

I'd never heard of her before then I'm sorry to say, but I began buying up her books when I found them thereafter. Due to the home demo, I don't have the dough set aside to spend on pricey hardcovers during their first publication run, so buying Life After Life was out of the question. Thus, I made a point of eyeing the new book arrivals whenever I happened to be in the local library. Finally, last week I hit pay dirt.

Life After Life is about just that. In the wake of a "failed" suicide attempt, thrice married Joanna becomes a hospice volunteer in her old hometown to honor her deceased husband. Her and a wacky cast that make up the old folk's home and the town surrounding it fill the pages of this surprise of a novel. Each chapter introduces us to a life and one by one we read through them, slowly understanding how each one fits together, culminating in an unexpected ending whose warning bells, placed throughout the novel, are easy to miss. It is a story of deaths but in those deaths is the story of life.

In short, it was a darn good book and you should read it too.

In other news, as I type there is a hole in the wall leading into the kitchen. Home demo has began and it means that I no longer have to walk outside to get to the refrigerator. Note that after sledgehammering the hole in the wall, we found that it used to be a doorway whose frame is still there, with the previous owner's names, the contractor's name, and the date the wall went up (1960), as well as a heart with the initials of the husband and wife inside it, written in pencil, waiting for us to find it.

In the background is the former door leading to the second set of basement stairs, which are no longer there, replaced with plywood and a bit of elbow grease.

Progress. It happens slow, but it happens.

Under the Tuscan Sun, the book.

I have a special love for Diane Lane. Despite our age difference, the characters she chooses to play in movies have always spoke to me. I connect much more with a Diane Lane character than I ever could to a Kate Hudson character or a Brittany Murphy character. At age twenty-one, my divorce recently finalized, I would watch Diane Lane play any number of divorcees and I would feel a kinship. At age twenty-eight, my divorce well behind me, I still can't help but love the woman who helped get me through. So when I saw the book version of Under the Tuscan Sun, I pounced on it.

The funny thing though? (And this really isn't that surprising considering the usual muddling of plot and detail in move adaptations) The book is nothing at all like the movie. For starters, the author, Frances Mayes, does not move to Bramasole in the aftermath of her divorce. In fact, she actively seeks a summer home in Tuscany with her current life partner, a man named Ed. There is no pregnant lesbian bestie. Her daughter comes out for several visits though. (In the movie, she had no children.) Those are just some of the major differences.

Very quickly, I gave up my movie-notion of things and just let the text take me where it wanted to go. It took me to a great many places, describing in poetic detail the beauty that was there. I heard a love for the land enacted in this book. I saw a glimpse of history, culture, life, and most importantly, food.

Yes, my readers, the book version is an homage to Italian cooking. It is equal parts travelogue and food-writing, with a bit of home demolition thrown in. (Boy can I relate to home demolition.) There are whole chapters dedicated to sharing recipes. While I'm not sure my Cleveland ingredients could measure up to the Italian stuff listed, I might try my hand at one or two of them, just to see if the food really is as delicious as Frances Mayes makes it out to be.

I missed Diane Lane in the pages of Under the Tuscan Sun, but I was introduced to a world worth exploring. There were a few times when the author goes into her rich Southern upbringing, with several mentions of a cook and the privilege that comes with it, and while her writing celebrates the land and the people on a grand scale, some of her descriptions of the local peasant life seemed a bit condescending, though it was never not loving in its renditions. Still, these particular issues I noted while reading were few in number and I was willing to overlook them for the story and the exploration, the excitement and the language. I was not disappointed (pregnant lesbians aside). It's hardly the book's fault that Diane Lane wasn't there.