Paradise, Piece by Piece - Softcover

Peacock, Molly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771069766 ISBN 13: 9780771069765

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 1999

Synopsis

You can ask that a book tell a compelling story, that it dazzle you with virtuosic writing, that its emotional content be pure and stirring, that the issues it tackles be timely and relevant and put forth with the utmost clarity and candor and a tonic dose of humor. Once in a very rare while, all such expectations will be rewarded. And sometimes they will even be exceeded, as they are in Molly Peacock's eerie and darkly humorous adventures, Carl and Jesse investigate the forgotten years of her adult life, examine the choices they have both made, and tenderly attempt to rekindle their lost love. A story rich in wit and human understanding, Always Six O'Clock explores the power of remembered love and the chances of two star-crossed lovers realigning.

About this title

Review

The author of four volumes of poetry, Molly Peacock proves she is equally adept at prose in this vividly graceful memoir. Some would say that Paradise, Piece by Piece is one more story of growing up in a dysfunctional family (alcoholic father, depressed mother, rebellious younger sister). Others would focus on Peacock's turbulent romantic life, while others still would place the emphasis on her decision to remain childless.

The truth of the matter is that all of these threads are vital components of a single, intricately woven tapestry, held together by Peacock's painstaking attention to detail. Anybody who has struggled to define his or her own life against the expectations and demands of others (be they society or one's own blood) will find inspiration in Molly Peacock's life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

If I could have told that girl, who waited to hear her father's car crawl up in the driveway, that things would never be as bad as they were at that moment, I think she would not have believed me. I imagine whispering into her ear, a skinny little shrimp with lank hair wearing a soiled blouse, her face at once both horrified and grim, that her life will be an adventure and that she will become a poet and live in two countries with a boy she would meet very soon. I see her turn her head a little bit on her neck, straightening her slump just a bit, and watch a slow, noncommittal sort of astonishment begin in her spine, delight moving up her vertebrae till it hits the top of her head and moves her shoulders back. I tell her--she is fourteen years old--that if she holds on for thirty years she's going to love her life. This girl does not say, "Thirty years! How will I hold on?" She does not dare complain or hope; instead, she walks. She walks across the empty plain, requiring that emptiness completely. Paradoxically, for her it will become full of creativity.

When I said No to having children, I felt as if I went to some viscerally interior place, the place of recognition. I'd always thought that the positive, the embracing, the Yes that is so characteristic of women's assumed responses, would let me affirm who I am. But it was a refusal that led me to understand my own nature. It was the saving no. The saving no seemed to emerge from the ready emptiness that is required for all creativity, not just for the making of art. That No can't be confused with loss, or the painful emptiness of not having what you need. Like a well-proportioned, unfurnished room with open windows, the affirming refusal invites life. It's a room, not a womb. Like a womb, it harbors life, but unlike a womb, it leaves room to create the rest of life.

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0771069766
• ISBN 13: 9780771069765
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352