Living with a Family, Seeking Happiness: Reading Laurie Colwin, Now and Then
Still Life
In 1990, my friend Cynthia told me about the writer Laurie Colwin and gave me a used copy of one of her short story collections, “The Lone Pilgrim.” The stories were stark and beautiful, full of humor and clarity.
Soon thereafter, I found a novel by Laurie Colwin as I rummaged around in a sale stack at the Nebraska Bookstore. It was called “Family Happiness.” There was a dim painting on the cover, a European still life with glorious golden peaches. A small, tidy paperback that exuded culture.
Help Me to Be Strong
“Family Happiness” has been a yearly feast for me ever since. In the year my mother died, I met and married my husband. Colwin’s tale of Polly Solo-Miller Demarest’s unhappy marriage provided an ironic and plangent counterpoint. This was 1992, also the year Colwin died of an aortic aneurism.
Even though the people in Colwin’s books were great at finding seemingly perfect lives, they were also always searching for something outside of themselves. They were at home but always yearning for something out of reach. I’ve always identified with that so much.
Toward the end of the novel, when Polly is feeling very lost and unhappy, she is early for an appointment and passes a church with an open door. It’s tiny and dark. She kneels and tries to pray.
Jews do not kneel in prayer; they stand. But kneeling felt much more private, so Polly knelt. She had not prayed since she was a little girl. How thoughtful of the church to provide a padded knee rest, Polly thought. She said very softly, into her hands: “Oh, God, protect me so that I will not be so self-protective. Help me to be strong and to not be so upset or to know why I am so upset. I really try to do good. Is it so terrible of me to love Lincoln? Please help me understand what is happening in my life, and please help me make it all right again. Give me some courage. Make me not so frightened.” She prayed this over and over again.
Polly wishes she were a little Catholic girl. When I was a little Catholic girl, all I wanted was to be exotic and intellectual and I wished I were Jewish. It’s like we were each on the other side of a portal into the other’s life, wishing to be there.
Life’s Tally
My relationship with my friend Cynthia had been complicated, and that she was the first to tell me about Laurie Colwin gives the experience another layer of frisson. We were fast friends right away when we met. When I told her I was going to spend time with my friend Andrew over the weekend, it hit me like a bolt from the blue that he and Cynthia would be perfect for each other.
I was entirely correct, for a time. They were engaged within the year. He gave her an opal ring that reflected the perfect blue of her eyes. They went to Paris for a winter vacation. Versailles was cold, and she soon broke his heart.
Somewhere within that short span of time, Cynthia broke off our friendship. She didn’t want to be around someone who was so depressed. I was angry and felt betrayed, and felt doubly betrayed that my friend loved her so much.
We had patched things up around the time I met my husband. She agreed to be a bridesmaid. I tried to ignore the fact that she had broken Andrew’s heart. We were a little older and finding our ways in life, and there was gladness between us.
And she told me about Laurie Colwin. Truly, this has been one of the great gifts of my life. In life’s grand tally, Cynthia and I are even.
A Perfect Lady
Polly Solo-Miller Demarest had the life I vaguely dreamed of. She is a Manhattanite who does everything perfectly. She dresses in sober, high quality natural fibers, wool and linen and silk. She lives in a building with a doorman. She’s an amazing cook, whipping up orange cakes from scratch on short notice and kindly teaching a younger co-worker how to cook lamb, prepare fresh green beans and make mashed potatoes. Polly has the perfect, fancy part-time job as a reading technician.
Her husband is a lawyer with a very stressful career. He’s big and kind and he loves their little boy and girl. He is sensitive enough to roll down a delicate quilt on the couple’s bed before he takes a nap. But, his high-stress career causes him to neglect our darling Polly.
It doesn’t seem like she really intends to, but Polly begins an affair with a painter, Lincoln Bennett. Because he’s a recluse, it is easy for Polly to invent weekend reading conferences and slip away to his studio undetected by everyone else in her life. (His studio was built on a side street in Manhattan in the 1920s, specifically as an artist’s studio.) Lincoln prepares little lunches for Polly — grapes, bread, cheese and wine. This itself sounded like a painting. He makes her one cup of coffee as she dresses in her serious, matronly clothes to get ready to go home.
Home Cooking
Later, after I was married and had a little girl, I found Colwin’s “Home Cooking,” a collection of essays that had originally been published as columns for Gourmet magazine. (When I heard there was a sequel, “More Home Cooking,” I immediately drove to Barnes & Noble to buy it.) These books were full of treasures, among them the recipe for genoise (evermore called “tea cake” by me and my children). Butter, sugar, flour and an egg — so simple.
Cream 1 stick of sweet butter and 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat in 2 eggs (or 1 yolk and 2 whites). Beat until light and fluffy with either a whisk or an electric beater. Fold in 1 cup of flour to which you have added 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon vanilla, if you like. (You can do without the baking powder or the vanilla). Bake in a buttered tin for 20 minutes to half an hour. You can eat this cake plain, with stewed fruit, or with ice cream, but it is best with jam and powdered sugar. For grown ups, bitter marmalade is very nice. Your actual work time is about ten minutes, which produces one of the best cakes you’ll ever eat.
I am someone who can cook and bake but would rather not. When you have a family you have to cook, so while still reluctant I’ve become somewhat competent at it. Colwin was much more than competent, and also was able to see that cooking was a way to transcend the everyday, to bring people together, celebrate heritage, find connections. She inspired me to find my own way to make a roast chicken. Alone in the kitchen, I felt I had a friend.
Her Voice, Beside Me
Woven through the recipes and stories I learned about Colwin’s child. They are now named R.F. Jurjevics — a brilliant artist, animator and jewelry designer. R.F. celebrates their mother’s legacy through their memories and creativity. It’s such a gift that they are so open about Colwin and so generous about sharing her with the world.
Colwin wrote often about hearts failing. She meant it metaphorically, usually in the context of cooking and eating. But at times she meant in an emotional sense. She died of heart failure (actually an aortic aneurism). Reading those passages now is heartbreaking. (There it is again…)
The great thing about books is the writer is alive, always. Their words are their voice, speaking truths long held, experiences hard lived and happiness hard earned. Laurie Colwin’s voice is there now as clearly as it was for me in 1990. I am home, dreaming about other worlds, and she is too, still.
