In Other Words

This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home

There are neither precious gingham curtains nor It’s A Wonderful Lifetype resolutions in these personal stories about the meaning of home. It’s a gut-punch kind of collection that covers everything from dementia to Thanksgiving, to the use of native languages, to moving back in with the parents, kids in tow. Difficult truths, worry, relief, and astonishment are in plentiful supply — and for the reader, a sense of appreciation is the final result, as it quickly becomes clear that all these writers are more than proficient at their craft.

The essay “Plane Crash Theory” expertly builds terror masquerading as domestic drama as author Dani Shapiro explores what makes a home, which in her case involves a toddler and a tall staircase. One line, benignly placed, has ramifications in every word before and after it: “In our marriage, I am the one who turns around and watches.”

In “On Moving Home,” Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum describes leaving a tenured faculty position with good benefits because she has a family, misses where she grew up, and worries about what providing a home actually means.

Desiree Cooper, in “Away From Dangerous Things,” conveys without sentimentality exactly what the onset of dementia does to one’s idea of home. One of the briefest pieces, Jennifer Finney Boylan’s “Freeing Thanksgiving from My Family,” skillfully conveys the galaxy of emotions that day can stir up.

Several of the contributions explore how language signifies home. In “A Family Business,” Jane Wong recalls growing up in the Chinese restaurant owned by her parents and details the importance of saying hello in Cantonese, along with how to write a revenge list, how to carry dishes, and “what to do now, now that you’re older and far away.” Her wit is both stinging and poignant. In “Mother Tongue,” Jennifer De Leon describes how her native Spanish became the “stepchild language” in her family, and the lifelong steps she’s taken to rebuild its place. Does putting her son in an immersion class attended mostly by children of wealthy Anglo parents accomplish what she hoped?

“Broken Home” by Debra Gwartney deconstructs the sense of safety your family might take for granted. In “Home in Four Acts,” Akiko Busch makes compelling the fate of an ugly blue couch she’s trying to remove from a small apartment. She misses the Salvation Army truck; a friend says he can come get it, but not until he can find another friend to help him move it. When that finally happens, and the author finds the “monstrosity upholstered in crushed velvet” gone, she realizes acquiring things and getting rid of them carry equal emotional weight.

“The Sound of Horse Teeth on Hay in the Snow” by Pam Houston is so rich with the vivid description of a blizzardy walk from house to barn in order to tend mini-donkeys and elderly horses, the reader practically hears the wind whistling steadily in the eaves. The narrator’s details, from meteorological observations to the depth of expression in dogs’ eyes, gradually unspool her love of being alone with her modest array of animals on a small farm. Through Houston’s presentation, this remote, tiny spot in the world is not at all lonely.

The authors of the pieces in this rich collection reveal fresh approaches to making sense of our culture, which is wrestling with gender equality, immigration, health care, homelessness, and many other charged matters. Their voices help make sense of where we are going, and also where we stay. — Patricia Lenihan