Recipes for a Beautiful Life: A Memoir in Stories
Copyright 2015.
This isn’t a cookbook, although there are recipes throughout. Instead, this #1 New York Times bestselling author explores what it’s like to balance writing with marriage and family in a failing economy. Through an introduction, epilog, and journal entries spanning from 2008 to 2012, she talks about how she and her husband and two small boys started a new life in a small town in upstate New York.
She describes the difficulties of writing while trying to care for a big house and two small children, especially when her husband’s work took him to New York. She discusses how she and her husband struggled to make ends meet after he was laid off from one of his jobs, how they tried and eventually succeeded at producing a magazine, and how, after working on a book for a couple of years, she realized it wasn’t publishable and the sense of failure she had as a result.
She describes her close-knit family, the reason she and her husband settled where they did. She talks about her sister, who wanted a baby and finally adopted one, and her mother’s diagnosis with kidney failure. In the end, she explains how a new book idea and the success of their magazine gave her a new lease on life.
This book frustrated me at times. Like many of today’s parents, Rebecca Barry and her husband Tommy weren’t as authoritative as our parents were when my younger brother and I were growing up. As a result, their little boys walked all over them.
If I had yelled at three in the morning, “Mommy, get up now!” I would have gotten a spanking, which I would have deserved. When my younger brother acted out in a restaurant, Dad took him outside, put him on the hood of the car, gave him a talking to and perhaps a spanking, which he also deserved. Talking back was not an option. Children must learn to respect others, to take responsibility for their actions, and to do things they don’t want to do like putting on their pants and going to school. That’s how I was raised, and I’m proud of it.
That said, this book helped me put my own life in perspective. I’m so thankful I wasn’t trying to write a book with a traditional publisher’s deadline looming while caring for two small children, especially in a society where spanking is taboo. All I had to contend with while getting my novel, We Shall Overcome, ready for publication was my late husband Bill’s partial paralysis as a result of two strokes. Oh, there were interruptions galore, since he could do little for himself, but at least he didn’t throw things or pee in the bathtub.
Then again, the comforting thing about being a parents is that your children will eventually grow up and be able to fend for themselves. However, when you’re caring for a loved one who will probably never walk again, things don’t usually get better. You can learn more about our struggles by reading My Ideal Partner.
Author Abbie Johnson Taylor
How to Build a Better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver
That’s Life: New and Selected Poems
My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds
Click to hear an audio trailer.
My Corner 
One thought on “Thursday Book Feature: Recipes for a Beautiful Life”