Planting Dandelions
Field Notes From a Semi-Domesticated Life
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3.9 • 19 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Introducing a writer with a keen eye, a wicked tongue, and an appealing take on family.
In the family of Jen Lancaster and Elizabeth Gilbert, Kyran Pittman is the laid-back middle sister: warm and witty and confiding, with an addictively smart and genuine voice-but married with three kids and living in the heartland. Relatable and real, she writes about family in a way that highlights all its humor, while at the same time honoring its depth.
A regular contributor to Good Housekeeping, Pittman is well loved because she is funny and honest and self-deprecating, because her own household is in chaos ("semi-domesticated"), and because she inspires readers in their own domestic lives. In these eighteen linked, chronological essays, Pittman covers the first twelve years of becoming a family, writing candidly and hilariously about things like learning to maintain a marriage over time; dealing with the challenges of sex after childbirth; saying good-bye to her younger self and embracing the still attractive, forty-year-old version; and trying to "recession- proof" her family (i.e., downsize to avoid foreclosure).
From a fresh new talent, celebrating the joys and trials of a new generation of parents, Planting Dandelions is an entertaining tribute to choosing the white-picket fence over the other options available, even if you don't manage to live up to its ideals every day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pittman's voice is like that of a close girlfriend: warm, funny, conspiratorial, and up for talking about anything. Pittman, a Good Housekeeping contributor, shares 18 essays about being a wife and mother (of three boys) who alternately dives into and shrinks back from those roles. She skillfully and honestly explores "the possibility of settling down without settling for," mixing funny anecdotes with thoughtful musings, plus plenty of looks back at the woman she was and has become, for better or worse. A recurring theme: she repeatedly returns to the demise of her first marriage and writes of her own surprise at her 13 years of monogamy with her second husband (for whom she left the first). While she writes of that time with regret and some sympathy, she also calls herself an "adulterous whore"; it's unclear whether she has or will ever forgive herself. Standout essays include "Penis Ennui," about what it's like to be the lone female in her household, and "Me, the People," in which she winningly recounts her physical and emotional journey from Newfoundland native to American citizen.
