A Broom of One's Own

I discovered this book while sitting on the couch of my daughter's piano teacher. Every week it was there, like a bowl in the drying rack that's just waiting for somebody to put it away. And so after a month I started reading it while my daughter received her instruction. What a pleasant surprise that turned out to be! There's a lot about the book I like: Nancy Peacock's writing style is effortless--meaning I could read a lot, and get a lot, without feeling that I had to do a lot of work. Her subject is near and dear to me: I live near to where she lives, and I would not be surprised if I have encountered the very people and houses she describes. Her reflections are meaningful, and caused me to reflect on the same subjects from my own perspective. And she shows courage by sharing her own hopes, fears, disappointments and compromises that have allowed her to live. I recommended this book to my wife, and she let that recommendation sit like a bowl in the sink. But now she is into it, and acknowledges that my recommendation was not in any way a subtle hint that she should do more housework, but a gift to help her do even more with her own writing. My recommendation to you is simple: stop procrastinating and read this wonderful little book!

This book is funny, wise and superbly written. Peacock is a novelist who has earned her living by cleaning houses, and her account of this has worlds to say about the writing life and how to cultivate it, and also about the rich, often overlooked tapestry of society, with the great themes that are underfoot. The house is the embodiment of the self, some phenomenologists have said, and this is what Peacock notices as she cleans them. With keen perception, she looks at dirt and clutter, show places and hidden places, colors and accoutrements, and sees the shapes of lives unconsciously expressed. In their houses people tell about themselves nakedly, albeit inadvertently. Peacock tells about herself too, openly but consciously. About these themes of life she is often funny, and sometimes acerbically perceptive, but also kind and understanding. Aspiring writers will find the book enormously refreshing as she writes about a universal struggle of the artist: how to earn a living doing something as base as dirt, and also honor that life in such a way as to transmogrify it into the stuff of art. She tells how, she shows how to do this.

Nancy Peacock's new book, A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN, is a true gem. The clever title evokes Virginia Woolf and delves into the challenges faced by most creative artists--namely, earning a living to support one's work and finding the space and solitude to create that work. Each of the essays in this collection starts with an anecdote about housecleaning, and each piece moves smoothly toward a description of some aspect of the writer's life. The writing is seamless and clear and evocative. As other reviewers have noted, there is a great deal of wisdom--and often humor--in these short essays. Peacock speaks to all of us, whether or not we are artists, and whether or not we clean our own houses. A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN is that rare book that entertains the reader at the same time that it teaches. I am tempted to say that A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN reminds me of other books that address the creative process--books like Annie Dillard's THE WRITING LIFE or Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD--but the writer that Peacock reminds me of is May Sarton. I thought of Sarton's JOURNAL OF A SOLITUDE when I read Peacock's book. Both writers are intent on exploring the nature of solitude and how it nourishes us. Like Sexton, Peacock is a writer capable of revealing truth through the description of common objects and simple actions. Peacock's two earlier books--LIFE WITHOUT WATER and HOME ACROSS THE ROAD--were novels, and both were acclaimed by critics. Peacock is a natural storyteller, and the characters in her fiction are as real and true to life as the homeowners depicted in A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN. Hopefully, the publication of A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN will send readers back to these wonderful novels. A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN will sweep you off your feet.

A Broom of One's Own is a delight--absorbing, sometimes surprising, often funny, wise. Nancy Peacock gives us a deep look into two worlds that may seem at first to be an unlikely pairing: that of a paid housecleaner and that of an insufficiently paid (although critically acclaimed--and with good reason, I can add) novelist. But a great many readers will recognize, as I did, the juggling act it can be between the work that sustains us physically and the work that sustains us creatively. Peacock has some fine things to say about that, and about how you can manage not to sell yourself short at one end while keeping yourself afloat at the other. She speaks to writers, certainly, and to artists in other areas, but I believe she also has something real to say to anyone who is trying to keep life larger than paying the rent. She says it well, too. This is writing I sank into--smooth, transparent writing, that is often unexpected and always satisfying. It's a cliche to say, 'I couldn't put it down'--but I couldn't put it down. It pleased me a great deal to add it to the list of good reading for writers that I give out to students in the writing classes I teach. Joyce Allen

This book came to my attention by chance about a month ago. I'd never heard of Nancy Peacock, but I bought this book anyway, intrigued by the subject and approach. I am so glad I did that, as this is a wonderful book. I could really not put it down (and being a mom to two preschoolers, that's saying A LOT). Each essay is an engaging, well-written, funny and poignant journey into Nancy Peacock's generous spirit, humble heart and incisive mind. I am a writer too and I appreciated all the things that Peacock writes about the writing life, but those who are not writers will love this book too. Like most good books, this book manages to be utterly universal while telling a very specific, personal story. A Broom Of One's Own is a riveting and lovely thing. Buy it and read!