{"id":8267,"date":"2023-06-14T15:01:40","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T15:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=8267"},"modified":"2023-06-14T15:04:16","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T15:04:16","slug":"you-could-make-this-place-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/14\/you-could-make-this-place-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"You Could Make This Place Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I Hope You Think This Book Is About You<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Poet Maggie Smith uses her memoir to tell a deeply personal story that nonetheless invites readers to make it their own.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Whitney Rio-Ross
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Poet Maggie Smith\u2019s You Could Make This Place Beautiful<\/em> is not your usual memoir. I mean this in the best way. I have enjoyed many memoirs, but I have been disappointed by more. I\u2019m often bored halfway through the book. By then I have gotten to know the writer\u2019s voice and their overall reason for writing the memoir. But even a strong voice and interesting material can get bogged down in the events recounted. I can empathize. Even in comparatively short creative nonfiction essays, it can be difficult to decide how much of your story needs to be included. A writer might know which moments mattered to them<\/em>, but whittling down those moments, threading them together, and shaping them into something a reader will find compelling is laborious. Maggie Smith had to struggle through many of these typical elements of memoir, but she also gave herself the freedom (and challenge) to throw out the rule book. The result is meta-memoir. In most writers\u2019 hands, the result would be sloppy, perhaps insufferably self-aware. But Smith makes it work.<\/p>

You Could Make This Place Beautiful <\/em>tells the story of a marriage, a divorce, and the aftermath. The actual divorce narrative is fairly typical, one I\u2019ve seen play out in friends\u2019 lives: Wife acts as primary caretaker of the children and does most of the domestic labor. Wife experiences success in career and therefore sometimes gives the husband more domestic responsibilities. Husband resents change of circumstances. Husband has an affair. Husband and Wife divorce.<\/p>

Overall, the book\u2019s story sticks with the basic beginning, middle, and end. Yet it comes in small bursts interrupted by quotes, poetry, an imagined play, and the questions Smith is trying to answer about herself. It all adds up to a book of reflection on relationships, grief, writing, and identity, all of which are tied together for her. A divorce memoir could be all gossip. (Honestly, given what I already knew about Smith\u2019s divorce before reading the book, I also would have read that version.) Instead, the surprising, often cyclical structure allows readers to inhabit Smith\u2019s grief. Grief is never straight-forward; there is no clear resolution. By inviting us to sit with her grief and questions, Smith is forcing us to sit with our own. I asked myself why I, a happily married woman with no children, was reading this book. I had to ask that because this isn\u2019t just a memoir; it\u2019s an interrogation of how and why we choose to share our stories with strangers.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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A realistic divorce-centered memoir demands an urgency\u2014urgency in all its pain, mess, and disorientation.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In her book Bird by Bird<\/em>, Anne Lamott argues, \u201cYou own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.\u201d\u00a0I can get behind this idea. We don\u2019t have a responsibility to sugarcoat characters who have hurt us; it can simply perpetuate their bad behavior. Lamott doesn\u2019t insist on us using our writing to get back at those who have hurt us, though. She also says writers own their <\/em>stories, but not the stories of everyone they\u2019ve encountered. This is a big theme in You Could Make This Place Beautiful. <\/em><\/p>

Smith makes it clear from the beginning that she isn\u2019t writing a juicy \u201ctell-all\u201d smear campaign against her ex-husband. Rather, she calls the book a \u201ctell-mine\u201d and argues that there is no such thing as a \u201ctell-all\u201d memoir in the first place. She acknowledges, \u201c[S]ome of what I\u2019m telling is what I don\u2019t<\/em> know. I\u2019m offering the absences, too\u2014the spaces I know aren\u2019t empty, but I can\u2019t see what\u2019s inside them.\u201d These spaces are often where her husband\u2019s \u201ctell-mine\u201d exists. She doesn\u2019t share stories of his that aren\u2019t an important part of hers. In a promotional interview, she refused to answer a question probing into the possibility that her ex-husband was motivated by jealousy. She explained that his inner world is not her territory and that she doesn\u2019t have the authority to speak for him. As much as you might hate Maggie Smith\u2019s ex-husband by the end of the book, you won\u2019t know enough to be able to find out much about his personal life. I imagine some of this choice is for the sake of her children. (Writing about her children\u2019s father is another thorny ethical issue she addresses.) Whatever the reason is, she set standards for herself, and I admire how she resists the temptation to ruin this man\u2019s life to the degree she could have.<\/p>

Make no mistake\u2014Maggie Smith is the (admittedly flawed) protagonist and her ex-husband the antagonist in her story. This seems right for a divorce memoir, and if she is presenting anything close to the truth, casting her husband in this role is entirely justified. And she is angry<\/em>. She didn\u2019t wait to write the memoir a decade or two after the divorce when she might be more composed, and for that I\u2019m grateful. A realistic divorce-centered memoir demands an urgency\u2014urgency in all its pain, mess, and disorientation.<\/p>

Of course, the issue of memoir\u2019s ethics raises another important question: Why write or read one? Bad memoirs can be nothing but airing dirty laundry or asking for pity. Bad readers are often there simply for the author\u2019s sordid secrets or cheap, voyeuristic pathos. Smith says that her book is not primarily \u201cpowered by anger, but by curiosity and a desire to understand…. This book is powered by questions.\u201d Many poets write to understand themselves, which is different from \u201csharing feelings.\u201d It\u2019s a letting-go, a willingness to enter the page without knowing where it will lead or what monsters and mysteries we\u2019ll encounter in the process. By writing this kind of memoir, Maggie Smith invites us into an intimate, winding journey. When asking herself why she wants to offer her story to readers, she writes, \u201c[E]xperience is instructive. People make connections on their own…. I need to trust that you\u2019ll know what to do with it.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Lives are specific, but sharing them can result in a more universal connection.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The idea that one person\u2019s heartbreak, with all its particulars, could speak and matter to strangers reminded me of another current cultural artifact\u2014Taylor Swift\u2019s ten-minute song \u201cAll Too Well.\u201d (If you haven\u2019t heard it, I invite you to stop reading and acquaint yourself with the most popular song of our time.) When Swift released the shorter version of the song a decade ago, she assumed that it wouldn\u2019t be a hit, that it was too personal a narrative to matter to listeners. She couldn\u2019t have been more wrong. Yes, the song shares details of her breakup, but those intimate details allowed fans to see their own stories. Swift has said that she doesn\u2019t want fans to try to figure out who her songs are about because she doesn\u2019t want them to think about her exes, but their own. Maggie Smith\u2019s memoir does something similar. By including the unique features of their heartbreaks, Swift and Smith connect with strangers who also have concrete objects that are integral to their stories. For Taylor Swift, it\u2019s a scarf; for Maggie Smith, a pinecone; for me, a poetry book. Lives are specific, but sharing them can result in a more universal connection. And when we\u2019ve lost someone\u2014through divorce, death, or other circumstances\u2014we crave connection.<\/p>

Apparently, Smith\u2019s exquisitely written devastation did speak to millions of people, ending up on the New York Times <\/em>bestseller list. (Is there any greater poetic justice for a writer scorned than having her memoir at the front of every bookstore?) I\u2019m glad for that, and not only because I want more people to read her poetry and because I want her to recover financially from an expensive divorce. I\u2019m glad that there are people learning from a story she is still trying to figure out. I\u2019m glad that she can help other divorcees process and grieve their lost marriages, that she can show some married women the dangers of unbalanced domestic labor. I\u2019m utterly delighted that she\u2019s written an accidental memoir textbook.<\/p>

I\u2019m also personally grateful for the book, and not only for the writing tips. Oddly, this book about divorce made me more appreciative of my marriage. Reading about Smith\u2019s ex, I realized that my husband could not be more different. <\/em>He takes my writing seriously and encourages me to attend workshops and conferences despite how much housework and dog-care it puts on him. I\u2019ve always appreciated this quality of his. Still, reading about the pain I have avoided in my marriage but tasted in previous relationships made me see how a supportive partner is a remarkable gift. Maybe that\u2019s the best thing this book offers\u2014the space for grief and uncertainty that might heal us enough to see what is, indeed, beautiful.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Whitney Rio-Ross<\/strong>\u00a0holds a Master\u2019s in Religion and Literature from Yale Divinity School. Her writing has appeared in<\/em> Sojourners,<\/em>\u00a0Reflections,<\/em> America Magazine,<\/em>\u00a0LETTERS JOURNAL,<\/em>\u00a0The Cresset,<\/em>\u00a0St. Katherine Review,<\/em>\u00a0The Other Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook\u00a0<\/em>Birthmarks and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir<\/strong> was published by Atria\/One Signal Publishers on April 11, 2023. You can purchase a copy here<\/a>. <\/em>
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Poet Maggie Smith uses her memoir to tell a deeply personal story that nonetheless invites readers to make it their own. Review by Whitney 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