There is one author whose books have moved with us to every single place we've lived. We turn to her when we're sick, sad, exhausted, or stressed -- and yet we've also read her books on airplanes and sunny Mexican rooftop decks and in Manhattan lofts on rainy days. For those of you who have not yet discovered her magical writing, we offer you a gift: Laurie Colwin.
Colwin offers comfort food in the form of words, and while best known for her memoir-like food essays, it is her short stories and novels which we hold most dear. She writes of love and family and food and home, with wit and intelligence and insight. No domestic detail goes unnoticed. The protagonist of the title story of the short story collection The Lone Pilgrim talks about "domestic sensualists," a descriptive that could well apply to many AT readers:
Oh, domesticity! The wonder of dinner plates and cream pitchers. You know your friends by their ornaments. You want everything. If Mrs. A. has her mama's old jelly mold, you want one too, and everything else that goes with it -- the family, the tradition, the years of having jelly molded in it. We domestic sensualists live in a state of longing, no matter how comfortable our own places are.
If you do an internet search for Laurie Colwin, you'll soon discover that there are a lot of, well, groupies. We keep her books on our nightstands, hope that a longlost manuscript has miraculously been discovered and that the book of her letters has finally seen the light of day. We re-read her books again and again, feel as if she was our friend, and we continue, even 16 years after her sudden death, to be heartbroken that she left this world much too soon.
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Great post! Thanks for this. She sounds interesting; I've already requested one of her books through my library.
Colwin's books are so wonderful. I think it is in "Home Cooking," that she writes about learning to cook by experimenting on her friends in her tiny Village kitchen, and that whenever something didn't come out well, she would just order Chinese food. I always felt less guilty after that when I messed up a meal. For years I would give all her paperbacks to people as a gift when they moved into their first place; they elevate domesticity and friendship to a high level. When she passed away I felt like I lost someone I knew.
thank you so much for this post. my father gave me a 1974 hardback european publication of the dangerous french mistress and other stories collection for my 16 birthday (in 1990), and i have been in unconditional love with colwin's writing ever since. i don't think enough praise can be lavished upon a human being whose very soul and spirit comes up through every word.
Wow! I'm going ot tomorrow morning to look for one of her books!
I meant to say "out" tomorrow morning.
I love Laurie Colwin's writing and was saddened by her early death.
I love Laurie colwin's writing so much. She has been translated into French in the early 2000's, and so I read her in French. Very moving. She does feel like a close friend.
Sadly enough, her cooking memoirs haven't been translated and I still have to read them. I keep that pleasure for a rainy day.
BM
Thanks for this post! I am always looking for recommended authors that I havent read and Colwin sounds fascinating and maybe will inspire me to try cooking again.
I think I remember the picture from a NYC house tour,please tell me that wasnt her home.
I think I first read "Happy All The Time" when I was about 12 and absolutely loved it. I've read her entire catalogue, but "HATT" will always be my favorite. I saved an essay she wrote in Elle magazine a few years before she died about the joys of writing with a fountain pen; I've still got it, and it is still a delight to read.
In "Happy All the Time" Ms. Colwin talks of the habit of one of the characters of creating still life's on trays when she carried her food to another room. I read the book when it came out, 1978, 30 years ago, and I still remember that mental vignette. How charming.
I am very curious as well, where is that top photo from?
I am curious about that photo as well.....
The picture is from this wonderful kitchen tour: "Sally's Rear Window"
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/kitchen-tours/kitchen-tour-2-sallys-rear-window-015067
Thank you for bringing the discussion of wonderful writers and books into the Apt Therapy home. It helps illuminate what really makes a home a home.
Sally's Rear Window is one of my all-time favourite house tours (well, kitchen tour), and what I hope we will be seeing more of in the future -- homes that speak of a life well-lived, not ruled by keeping everything stylistically consistent, but guided by warmth and beauty and utility.
Love that kitchen, and love Laurie Colwin books
I'm a new Colwin fan. I've been reading my way through her books. But the book I can't seem to get out of my head is Happy All the Time. It has to be a classic.
"We re-read her books again and again, feel as if she was our friend, and we continue, even 16 years after her sudden death, to be heartbroken that she left this world much too soon. "
Yes. ditto, Sydney
she is a favorite of mine...found her books YEARS ago and felt like she was a friend of mine...so personal was her writing. i was so sad to know she had passed away years before...what a lovely woman and an amazingly talented writer
I'll always remember hearing the news of her death on NPR ... the next day, my friend of many years said she was saddened by the loss of her favorite author ... and that was when we discovered we had both always, secretly (apparently), been Laurie Colwin fanatics. I'm guessing LC love is a thread that runs through kindred friendships everywhere. At our house, we make her favorite gingerbread recipe (from More Home Cooking) every year around the anniversary of her passing.
How nice to come upon these comments about Laurie Colwin. 19 years ago, this week, I discovered Colwin's Goodbye without Leaving at my local library while on my once weekly outing during a bed bound problem pregnancy. I was fascinated. Later that week, I was invited to a group dinner at someone's home who I did not know. His question to me was...."so what do you like to read?" When I told him that I'd just read Colwin's Goodbye..., he said he knew of Laurie and had even corresponded with her. So you could say Laurie Colwin was indirectly responsible for one the best friendships I've ever had. Later, during the pregnancy when I was hospitalized, my friend brought me all of her books to read while consigned to bed rest at the hospital. I've been a fan ever since.