Book Review: Still Life with Chickens
Well, this isn’t really a book review. It’s more like I really like this book and here’s why you should read it.
I’m constantly imagining a place by the water. A little cottage at water’s edge where the fish are bitin’. Something around 800 square feet with a modern bathroom (no composting toilet, sorry) that greets me whenever I need a creative or spiritual retreat. This is the dream. While that might not be a reality at this moment, I love how Still Life with Chickens tells of Catherine Goldhammer’s experience, the complete inverse of what I just described. In her memoir, Catherine describes how she was forced into an old rural house by the water near Boston Harbor. And how she turned sea salt into sea water.
“I did not have a year in Provence or a villa under the Tuscan sun. I did not have a farm in Africa. Instead, my diminished resources dictated a move to a run-down cottage in a honky-tonk town where live bait is sold from vending machines. But, in a town where houses rub elbows, I came to live in a hidden place at the edge of a salt pond, beside a small forest, nine hundred feet from the sea. In a town where everyone knows everything, I came to live in a place no one knows exists.”
-Catherine Goldhammer
Catherine is the consummate survivor. And we love her instantly for it. At midlife, following a breakup with her husband, she has only the means to buy a modest place where she will be raising her daughter. Prior to this, she was accustomed to an upscale life as a New England wife. Her ability to find and restore a place of her own is mesmerizing, and her attention to detail informs you of the power of journaling. You just know that as she is going through this messy and difficult transition, she will not only work through it, but push through it — and get a story out of it in the bargain. It’s just a lovely read, and Catherine’s characterizations of small town life are meticulous, humorous.
Another facet of this book that resonates is Catherine’s candor about moving from more to less. In the thick of it, she can’t imagine paring down. How does one relinquish all the material comforts that have for so long been imbued in your sense of Self? Catherine takes on that question and chronicles the negotiations so many of us have with ourselves. Without this, who am I? Without these, who am I? Because she has so few options and so few resources, she makes that transition both unwillingly and yet ultimately willingly. It’s a wonderful lesson for all who think we wouldn’t survive — let alone thrive — without the comfort and security of modern, upwardly mobile life. Also check out Catherine’s follow-up memoir, Winging It.
