APRIL 2023 - AudioFile
American poet Maggie Smith beautifully narrates her memoir of the end of her marriage and rediscovering herself as she picks up the pieces. Starting with her heartbreak, the memoir explores not only a very specific kind of pain, but also the roles that women embrace and grow into. From traditional gender roles and power dynamics to finding out who you truly are and giving yourself much needed empathy, this memoir uses snapshots of Smith's life to explore bigger ideas. Smith's pacing makes each word and phrase more powerful. Her performance can be heartbreaking, but her narration is charming and poignant. V.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"In a series of short vignettes, Smith reveals her emotional acuity and quiet wisdom on love, trust, marriage and motherhood, as well as the nature of creativity and the ramifications of success. As a chronicle of a divorce and a meditation on parenthood, it’s unflinching, insightful and exquisitely written."
—The Guardian
“Maggie Smith’s book is one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve ever read....This book makes me see the women in my life in a new light, not that they are different, but I am.”
—Kwame Alexander, Oprah Daily
“Rich in nuance and unrelenting in its honesty, Smith’s memoir is a bittersweet study in both grief and joy.”
—TIME
"This book is extraordinary."
—Ann Patchett
"A beautiful book...stunning."
—Oprah Daily
"A triumph"
—Mary Louise Kelly, NPR
"Smith turns to prose to chronicle the end of her marriage and the hard, beautiful work of loving and valuing herself."
—People
"Throughout, she quotes the Emily Dickinson line 'I am out with lanterns, looking for myself,' and the book shines with a light all its own."
—New York Post, Best Books of 2023
"Sparkling & brilliant. Maggie was able to put into words things I’ve always felt as a writer and a human."
—Daisy Perez, CBS Mornings
"[An] elliptical, inquisitive book"
—Buzzfeed
"By engaging anguish directly, Smith carves a space for the beautiful over the heart that holds initials alongside 'forever.'"
—The Rumpus
"This book is a gift."
—Leslie Jamison, bestselling author of The Empathy Exams
"Beautifully written... Smith should be just as celebrated for her prose."
—Town and Country
"Incredibly relatable...At turns devastating and darkly funny."
—Columbus Monthly
“You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about recognizing your own worth in your relationship, and in the world.”
—Slate
"A poet’s memoir... [Smith] has an uncanny ability to boil down giant ideas into tiny, dense sentences that are both playful and heartbreaking."
—Shondaland
"An anatomy of....an artist stepping into her own light, of a mother working out how to create a loving family on her own."
—BOMB
"Smith’s prose is as warm and welcoming as her poetry."
—Chicago Review of Books
"Smith opens her heart like a book, dog-earing moments both painful and joyous...Smith's conjuring of beauty through pain and her special blend of vulnerability and encouragement go down like a healing tonic.”
—Booklist (starred review)
"You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a sparklingly brilliant memoir-in-vignettes that only Maggie Smith could write. Yet this is a book for everyone—who among us has never had our world upended by the loss of a relationship? Maggie Smith’s powerful mastery of language, and amazing ability to portray life in all its rich messiness, is on full display in this bold, brutally candid, and yes, beautiful, book.”
—Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts
“In this lightning bolt of a debut memoir, Maggie Smith gives us the truth of healing in form as much as story: getting through is no pretty, linear narrative. It’s one chapter forward and five chapters back. You Could Make This Place Beautiful gave me back a part of myself I thought was gone for good: the knowledge that beauty isn’t something out there to find. It’s in us.”
—Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life
“Listen, you may not need me to tell you what you already know about the shining star that is Maggie Smith, but you can certainly add me to the chorus of those singing her praises about You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Among her singular gifts as a writer are the way she swiftly brings her poetry to her prose; her willingness to show up to the page with aspirational levels of vulnerability, grace, and joy; and a clarity of heart amid the heartbreak that together makes this a moving and gorgeous must read.
—Elizabeth Crane, author of This Story Will Change
“When personal tragedy strikes us, first we have to survive, then we have to begin healing. This exquisite book will help you do both. Reading Smith's memoir, I laughed and gasped and ugly-cried and somehow began to process ten years of my own pent-up, frozen grief. This book is nothing less than a cathartic miracle.”
—Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love
