Customer Reviews

Around the House and In the Garden: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Healing, and Home Improvement

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wanted to be enraptured by this book, since I am a gardener and home lover as well. But I just felt it was a veneer of what Ms. Browning was experiencing. Maybe its because when one is a public person, as she was after editing a national magazine for so long, it is not easy to expose oneself completely.

The chapters do read as separate and distinct columns -- no real relationship to one another -- and are easy to digest independently. But I wished for more content, more details and more depth. There is no question she is a sensitive and passionate person and this does come through in her writing, but I felt she was either holding back or couldn't translate this into a sustained script.

And for those gardeners out there, don't pick it up expecting much about actually getting your hands dirty. If you want to read a book about gardens and their healing power, try reading Monty Don's The Jewel Garden: A Story of Despair and Redemption (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2005).

Sometimes a book comes along that changes our outlook--perhaps even pulls us from despair. Ms. Browning's book seemed to take my hand and yank me from the quagmire. She seemed to be saying, You are not the first woman to let a garden run to seed or to watch small trees sprout from your gutters! You are not the only woman who has made a mistake--whether it's choosing the wrong a sofa . . . or man. Giving ourselves permission to fix our lifes can often be as difficult as repairing a gas leak --the job is far too difficult and dangerous to contemplate. Setting ourselves free isn't painless--in fact, "setting" is the wrong word. It is more like ripping and tearing; although sometimes it can be more like a surgical separation--no matter, all methods are painful and require a period of rest and healing. That is the most important concept of the book--in her inimitable style, she gently reminds us that it is "okay" to let things go to seed, and that our houses and gardens are barometers of our emotional lives. These barometers will let us know when it is time to rebuild the nest.

Reminiscent of Jackson McCrae's "THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD--A Tour of Southern Homes and Gardens" (though that book goes very deep into the lives of houses), Browning's book is full of heart-warming stories and insight into what really makes up a home. The details she notices are amazing and she brings them to life for us with a sense of poetry and style. What a brave and caring book she's given us.

As a longtime fan of personal essays -- and one who teaches writing workshops on the topic -- I found this to be an exceptionally enjoyable and beautifully written collection. Best of all, as a homemaker who loves the domestic arts, I think Browning strikes just the right tone of love and yearning for home.

Most of us are too busy these days to spend all the time we'd like creating a home and garden, or nurturing a young family. Browning hones in on these desires and serves up poignant pieces everyone can relate to -- even if we're not divorced or uprooted. I would love to see more of her work (yes, I subscribe to her magazine just to read her essays) in book form!

In her essays on life in a home, Dominique Browning, editor of House & Garden, offers her own intensely personal experience with the ways in which the home environment affects and is affected by divorce, self-esteem, and vice versa.

Her descriptions of her rooms, her struggle to find a good living room couch (after successfully finding a kitchen sofa), her explanations of plants and flowers to her young sons, all create the feeling that you are on the phone with an old friend working to describe her evolving life. Her deep understanding of the ways in which our environments affect us (for better, for worse, just like marriage) leads the readers to feel like the changes we've been tempted to make might just be logical after all.

When I finished reading AROUND THE HOUSE AND IN THE GARDEN, I unconsciously placed Dominique Browning's book on the shelf next to Mirabel Osler's GENTLE PLEA FOR CHAOS. Spouses who've lost a wife or husband through death or divorce have something in common (whether they like it or not) and both Browning and Osler have something to say about bereavement. Osler's book will help you handle the loss following the death of a spouse, Browning's book will help you fall asleep and forget your ex. Osler's book is somewhat philosophical and for the recovering gardener, Browning's book is for the recovering partner.

Browning is the editor-in-chief of House and Garden magazine, and her series of short essays is reminiscent of those short "editorials" one in her position undoubtedly writes for such a magazine. Her writing is friendly but very general. Browning provides no detail about gardening-or redecorating for that matter. Her book is sort of "autobiographical" but she shares very little of any great import about herself or anyone else in her family (or ex-familia). The closest she comes to sharing her emotions occurs when she describes a bedtime scene where she lifted her son up by his pajama lapels when he mentioned her ex-spouse's intended and jokingly informed him that he was not to talk about "other women" in her presence. In fact, Browning shares less about her self and family than the friendly passenger sitting next to you on a six-hour flight.

If you need calming, gentle, diversionary material to lull you to sleep on those nights when you are thinking obsessively about something that can be better addressed the next day (like causing serious bodily harm), this little book may help. If you want some "real" gardening stuff you should check out Osler's book.

This book is for anyone looking to explore their feelings toward their home and surroundings. Miss Browning gets to the soul of her home and gives meaning to inanimate items collected throughout her home and garden. Explore what you've been missing in your relationship with your home. My hopes are that Dominique compiles another collection of essays, soon. Readers can preview Dominique Browning's writing style in her monthly editorial in the magazine, House and Garden.

I found this book to be just a wonderful collection of essays about the connections between home and spirit and recommend it highly who is currently in the process of trying to merge or re-merge the two. It especially speaks to women who are starting over in their lives after a divorce but could be just as useful to all women attempting to create some kind of spiritual retreat in which to nurture their bodies and souls. After reading this book, I decided to subscribe to Ms. Browning's House and Garden magazine so I would have the opportunity to enjoy a new essay of hers on the topic of home and life once a month. Her style of writing very much reminds me of Anna Quindlen's. For anyone else who enjoyed Dominique's book, you might also want to read "When A Woman Takes an Ax to A Wall: Where Is She Really Trying To Go?" by Allegra Bennett.

I have always loved the writing of Dominique Browning and turn to her letter from the editor in House and Garden as soon as I receive the magazine in the mail! The book contains a few of those essays (a pleasure to reread them) and many other reflections on her life in her two homes. The houses come to symbolize the state of her heart and mind and Ms. Browning weaves in her other thoughtful musings throughout these sometimes disconnected essays.

I would recommend this book to all who love their home and garden and derive strength and solace from the pleasures of creating beautiful and comfortable homes. The book is honest without being a tell-all. While maintaining the privacy of her ex-husband and sons, Ms. Browning opens up her heart to the reader. I often thought of the symbol of a bird's nest - she herself seemed like a bird who is left to tend to her young in a nest until they are strong enough to fly off on their own. In many ways this book was really a love song to her sons. Perhaps because I have two sons of my own, I really identified with the author's emotions: the raw love of her boys mixed with the desire to have them share her deepfelt sensitivity toward the objects, smells, textures and sounds that surround us in the places we call our home.

I recommend this book with the small caveat that it does not contain a neat plot or storyline, but instead, is a series of thoughtful essays - some a tad depressing, but all very beautifully written. A few of the essays could have been tweaked a bit more as they got redundant, but that is just a quibble!