The Future Homemakers of America
A Novel
by Laurie Graham
List Price: $14.00
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0446679364
Publisher: Warner Books
Laurie Graham, I was born in 1947, so my earliest memories are of post-war Britain, a grey place of bombed buildings and rationed food. I was five years old before I tasted candy, nearer ten years old before I rode in a car. By the 60s it was a very different story. Britain was swinging and I did my best to join in, though to be honest I was never much of a swinger. I went to college, where sex, drugs and rock and roll passed me by and so too did education. I had no idea I was going to be a writer. I married, produced a baby a year for four years and played at Earth Mother until I got my long overdue wake-up call. I was in my mid-thirties with a failing marriage, four mouths to feed and no career. I began writing out of sheer desperation.
It took me five years to get my lucky break — with Cosmopolitan magazine, and then soon afterwards with a publishing house so venerable it had a photo of Virginia Woolf on its wall. It wasn't all plain sailing though. My marriage did end, and my writing career has sometimes been storm tossed, sometimes in the doldrums, but to continue the metaphor, I'm now in calmer waters. Those four little mouths are old enough to feed themselves, I have made a very happy second marriage, and I'm now able to write the books I really want to write.
Three years ago I realised a lifelong ambition and moved to Italy, to the fabled city of Venice, where, give or take a few TV antennae, the view from my office window hasn't changed in 500 years. It is the ultimate antidote to that chilly utilitarian backdrop of my childhood.
BOOKS THAT LEFT THEIR MARK
I was an asthmatic, only child so I read widely, avidly and indiscriminately. Nowadays I read very little fiction except the classics I neglected when I was younger. Madame Bovary, The Brothers Karamazov, and Don Quixote have been the great discoveries of my middle years. Three little non-fiction books that have influenced me strongly are: THE ART OF TIME by Jacques Servan Schreiber.
This book states the obvious—that none of us has an unlimited fund of time so we had better be prudent how we spend it—but sometimes the obvious is worth saying. I re-read it periodically and it always helps me to be more effective in what I do, more realistic in what I plan, and more contented with what I achieve. ITALIAN FOOD by Elizabeth David.
By now there must be a thousand more lavish and visually gorgeous Italian cookbooks available, but when I first read this in the 1960s it evoked such a sun-dappled picture of a country where people pay attention to good, simple things, I immediately fell for Italy, food, language, landscape and all.
Beginning To Pray by Anthony Bloom.
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, who was a physician and a monk before he was ordained a priest, has been an important Christian guide for me. He manages to be both gentle and uncompromising, and he writes about the perplexing subject of faith with great common sense and humour. This book is always on my night table or in my travel bag.
Laurie Graham is a former Daily Telegram columnist and Contributing Editor to Cosmopolitan UK. This is her sixth novel, and she is currently writing the screenplay adaptation for her novel The Dress Circle.
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