Home Life
"A spare homage to the mystery and vitality of interior spaces that has all the intimacy of a memoir and all of the inventiveness of an armchair travelogue." —Elle Magazine
"Home Life is so meticulously constructed, beautifully written, seamless, without a false step. The inner and outer worlds seem to emerge simultaneously on the page. I want to steal lines—and your own line, “something so perfect it seemed tinged with a kind of grief”—expresses the feeling of the book for me. I can’t wait to read the next book you create." —Sylvia Foley, author of Life in the Air Ocean
Blending memoir and cultural history, Home Life evokes the changing spaces, both literal and metaphorical, of a woman's life. It reflects on not only how we shape our homes but also how, perhaps even more powerfully, our homes shape us. Shaped as a series of linked essays, full of lyrical writing and luminous insight, Home Life is a memorable read and a beautiful gift for anyone who loves interior design, houses, art, or stories of women's lives. Plans for a new edition are underway; in the meantime, you can often find inexpensive used copies online.
"Fox has organized her memories around a witty and beguiling conceit...While some memoirs reek of self-involvement, this one invites the reader in: to her parents’ suburban home in New Jersey; to an artistic-ally shabby pensione in Paris; to a friend’s sun-drenched California guest room where there was, almost literally, a monster hidden. Good writing sometimes comes cheap, but here the writing is lapidary without being overly precious. Welcome and thoughtful as a night-light in a dark entrance hall." —Booklist
"Linked yet self-sustaining thematic chapters invite us in, and Fox's sure sense of pacing draws us easily through her life's passage-ways and resting places. Though unsentimental, her memoir serves in part as an elegy to long-gone rooms of the past and the human struggles heating them." —Kirkus Reviews
"In Home Life, Suzanne Fox has truly found her elegant place of residence as a writer. She brings together memoir and cultural criticism with warmth, humor and sharp self-scrutiny. Fox’s domestic metaphor, beautifully contemplated, reflects the many moves of a woman’s life that take her from the memorialized houses of childhood to the stark reality of an emotional rental market in which she must finally find herself at home." —Maureen Howard, author of Facts of Life and winner of the National Book Critics Circle
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