Perfectly Miserable: Guilt, God and Real Estate in a Small Town

by Sarah Payne Stuart

A wryly comic memoir that examines the pillars of New England WASP culture—class, history, family, money, envy, perfection, and, of course, real estate—through the lens of mothers and daughters.

At eighteen, Sarah Payne Stuart fled her mother and all the other disapproving mothers of her too perfect hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, only to return years later when she had children of her own. Whether to defy the previous generation or finally earn their approval and enter their ranks, she hurled herself into upper-crust domesticity full throttle. In the twenty years Stuart spent back in her hometown—in a series of ever more magnificent houses in ever grander neighborhoods—she was forced to connect with the cultural tradition of guilt and flawed parenting of a long legacy of local, literary women from Emerson’s wife, to Hawthorne’s, to the most famous and imposing of them all, Louisa May Alcott’s iconic, guilt-tripping Marmee.

When Stuart’s own mother dies, she realizes that there is no one left to approve or disapprove. And so, with her suddenly grown children fleeing as she herself once did, Stuart leaves her hometown for the final time, bidding good-bye to the cozy ideals invented for her by Louisa May Alcott so many years ago, which may or may not ever have been based in reality.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Books About Books, Religion, Womens, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 12, 2014

Reviews

[reading is my hustle]

oh my god, Sarah Payne Stuart, please do shut up...

[Sjancourtz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I live in Concord, MA. There were parts of this book--a page or two, here and there--where I thought, "Oh, YES, she's nailed this town." It's true that there is a whole subculture of older ladies who do volunteer work, wear ancient Eddie Bauer parkas and resolutely walk their dogs in the foulest weather. Who serve on the town historic commission and make sure Victorian homes aren't torn down and replaced with McMansions.

But what's wrong with that? Why so snarky? She moved here so her kids could have a great Mayberry childhood: walk to a good school, ride your bike to your friends' homes, go swimming at Walden Pond in the summer, walk into town for an ice cream or a slice of pizza, play baseball and soccer at the town parks, and when they get older, take the train into Boston for a day of city attractions. how many towns allow a childhood like that?

Ms. Stuart should do some math: Her property taxes cannot POSSIBLY have covered what we taxpayers spent to educate her children. And now that it's her turn to help pay for other peoples' kids, she has moved away. Well, fine, that's her right. But it is NOT nice to then turn around mock the very town that gave her everything she asked for, and more.

Another reviewer is absolutely right: read The New Yorker article (which contains all the interesting stuff) and don't bother with the book.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sorry to say I abandoned this book. Too much hysterical drivel. It had such promise but I was not impressed.

[Jaylia3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part self-depreciating, scathingly honest, bitingly funny memoir, and part town history, author biography, literary critique, Perfectly Miserable mesmerized me with its multi-tiered perspective, frequent revelations, and consummate writing. Sarah Payne Stuart grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, and though she was perfectly miserable much of the time memory and desire are funny things. She hightailed it out of Concord as soon as she was old enough, but found herself deciding to move back when she had young children of her own, picturing for them an ideal childhood in the town where Thoreau, Emerson and the Alcotts lived, even though that was far from her own experience. Things, of course, didn’t work out exactly as planned, but then again neither did the lives those Transcendentalists.

The Puritans and Transcendentalists left a mixed legacy for the people of Concord, and Payne spends a good part of the book on their personal lives, which is fascinating, and on how their history and philosophies are still influential, especially in old New England families like hers, but not always with good results. I don’t have Payne’s real estate cravings, she moved her family every few years, usually by choice, always expecting social redemption, or parental approval, or a more exact approximation of the ideal New England lifestyle, but she and I brought up our children close enough in time that I can relate to many of her child-rearing choices (promote self-esteem! don’t burden them with meaningless chores!) and subsequent mishandlings. Even so, while reading along I sometimes couldn’t help but want to ask her in amazement why, why, why did you say that to your mother or child, or think that, or believe that tack would work, and yet she makes you totally see it too, and understand how it all made sense to her at the time.

Because Perfectly Miserable is about how Payne’s life has been affected by the literature and lives of Transcendentalists and Puritans the book it most nearly reminds me of is the also thoughtful and engrossing My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, though the two books have very different tones. I first encountered this material in a shortened form as a New Yorker article--which oddly or not was the same way I became aware of My Life in Middlemarch--and Payne’s article was so promising and fascinating it left me determined to read her book. In book form it is maybe a little overly long in the middle, or at least my interest diminished briefly, but the concluding chapters are strong again and most of the time I was reading I couldn’t put this book down.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just finished reading "Perfectly Miserable: Guild, God and Real Estate in a Small Town" a memoir by Sarah Payne Stuart. Let me start by saying I like memoirs. I like to read about people's lives and how their lives were changed by their experiences. This was marketed as "a warm, wryly comic memoir" and frankly, I didn't find it particularly warm or comic. The author never seemed to be really happy, even when she got what she thought she wanted. She was raised in Concord, Massachusetts - the epitome to her of WASP culture and Stepfordish housewives and strict mothers who could never be pleased. She escaped to New York City, married and had some lovely children...life was good and yet, she decides to chuck it all (including her husband giving up his successful job) to move back to the town she couldn't wait to leave. To enroll her children in the same activities that she did as a child. She and her husband extend themselves financially to the max to buy a beautiful older home (at last gaining her mother's approval) and then redo it, only to eventually become dissatisfied with their dream home and sell it to move "up the hill" where the wealthy people live...to belong to the elite.

Along the way we also read some interesting information about other famous citizens of Concord - Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott. Reading the true story of Ms. Alcott's life certainly does give one a different take on "Little Women" and "Marmee" in particular.

I had no problem putting this book down and wasn't overly eager to pick it up again. There would probably be a lot to discuss in a book club setting, yet I don't think I'll be recommending this to my book club. I think the line that sums up the overall feeling I got when reading this book is "Perhaps May (one of Louisa May Alcott's sisters) felt as my mother felt,, and as I and so many other New Englanders irrationally feel - that great happiness can only be followed by punishment". Hence, the title "Perfectly Miserable" is perfectly apt.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book went down easy, but at the end I found myself wondering what the author had been trying to do/say. The book essentially revolves around 3 topics: the author's life, her mother's life, and the 19th century authors who lived and worked in Concord. These three topics seem to be on a regular rotation schedule, and so we careen back and forth between WASP life in the 1940s, the various trials and tribulations of Louisa May Alcott, with some Transcendentalists thrown in for good measure, and the author's own experience of growing up in Concord in the 1960s-1970s, and then as a mother of three children. She identifies with Louisa May Alcott to some extent, but at some point the comparisons and parallels seemed rather forced. And while I read about the author's family's history of manic depression (poet Robert Lowell was a cousin) with horrified fascination, I could not figure out the author's relationship to her mother. Yes, her mother had been frugal, undemonstrative and rigid, and yes, the author had rebelled by becoming a helicopter mom. But where was the appreciation for the fact that mothering is never easy, and especially not if you have 4 children, little money, and the black cloud of depression always threatening to come down? In the end, I had more sympathy for the author's mother, who had soldiered on in the face of some pretty grim odds, than for the author herself, who seems to fashion her whole identity on the stereotype of old-money-WASP-who-is-now-broke-but-still-belongs-to-country-club.

This being said, there was some funny writing in the book... and yet, in the end it left me uncomfortable. And in view of the multiple serious mental breakdowns experienced by the author's mother and brothers, I had little sympathy to spare for the author's own troubles, which were largely of her own making.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, this is a book to read in small doses. Sarah Payne Stuart's memoir flows well, and ties in very interesting subjects, but I found her "voice" unlikeable, I'm sad to say. The excerpts that ran in the New Yorker were perfect, and entertaining. But reading a whole book with her facetious, sometimes skewering tone... was kind of painful. I live in Concord, and really wanted to like Perfectly Miserable, but I sincerely struggled to get through it. The only reason that I pushed myself to read it all was for an upcoming book group discussion. I'm not SO in love with living in Concord that I cannot see its flaws, or the pressure that some residents feel to keep up with their neighbors, or to make their parents proud, but those struggles are universal. I expected to really pull for Stuart, but the best four pages of the book for me were at the end, when she goes around town saying goodbye to all the landmarks. Just not an enjoyable read, despite my familiarity with the area. Perhaps My First Cousin Once Removed would be a better read, as I found the details and observations on her family to be very interesting.

[Tara Edelman]

She lived on my street in what is now my friend's house. She talks about people I recognize. It's been rumored that people in Concord are up in arms about Payne's writing. How could I NOT read this with interest? The way she included less-romanticised views of Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne and, especially, the Alcotts and connected their Concord lives to her own memories and feelings about Concord was interesting and fun. That was a challenging trick to pull off and, in some places, the parallels worked better than others. Toward the end I felt the comparison was strained or over-worked and started to wonder whether the book was about Louisa or Sarah. That said, I enjoyed those stories, so who am I to criticize!?

This book does not reflect the Concord I know. I believe Concord has changed a lot over the last 10 years. That said, it's a fun read for someone who hasn't been here very long.

This isn't just a book about Concord. It's a book about mental illness and how it impacts families through the generations.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up in Concord. So I felt that this book, notably the first chapter, nostalgic and evocative, especially since I am staying with my Mom who still has a house near Thoreau Street, the train, and the Concord River. We both had a great time driving around nearby neighborhoods looking for the homes Stuart was lucky enough to own for a short time. I enjoyed her history lessons about the Concord Authors, and her stream of consciousness style that satires the eloquent nature of the town. Learning about the craziness of Bronson, and Louisa's reasons for writing Little Women, encourages me to check out some of works listed in the bibliography and, perhaps, read Moods, which has been sitting on my shelf for years ever since I bought it at Buttrick's Mansion while playing tourist. Very funny but also very depressing because I too adore and covet the many mansions that grace this historic town (and had the chance to see inside them). But I also felt there were chapters of navel gazing I could skim, particularly the ones where Stuart exposed her family skeletons. I was eager to return to her impressions of Concord, which she does with enthusiasm, in a chapter titled God and Real Estate (a must read for Concord survivors). Fortunately, while I recognized the specific references she made, such as swimming lessons at Walden Pond (I too learned to swim there, but unlike her, I enjoyed them), Concord could have been any town in New England and merely served as a back drop to her unloading of guilt and pain regarding her inadequacies in the eyes of her family, which was much to her imagination. Just to clear the air, Concord isn't as uptight as she makes it sound. There are a lot of nice people here.

[AntKathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received "Perfectly Miserable" as an ARC giveaway. The following review is my own opinion.

While Sarah Payne Stuart makes a case for New England Yankee culture, I was not all that convinced that these neurotics are exclusive to Concord, MA. Much of the behavior and beliefs of the "older" generation is typical to all Depression-era adults. Likewise, the spendthrift ways of Sarah's generation (fifty-ish) is typical of those who experienced the economics of the eighties when they were "DINKS" and "Yuppies". Frankly, the so-called Puritan/Protestant ethic that Stuart believes is unique to her hometown is still running riot in Berryville, Arkansas, Kennewick, WA, Omaha, NE and Menifee, CA.

The history of the town and the literary figures who inhabited it generations ago were interesting, and when she wasn't whining too loudly, Stuart's writing style was entertaining, but really, much of the US is "Perfectly Miserable" nowadays.

[Reesa Kashuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a part-time New Englander (is there such a thing?!) I couldn't stop laughing! Though I don't know Concord well, I recognized parts of my neighbors and even parts of myself in this very funny and insightful book. I have to say, I committed the sin of never reading Little Women as a girl but I am now prompted to read it to understand how such a classic could have come from Alcott's 'perfectly miserable' family life as described by Stuart. I can only think that some of the things that make us perfectly miserable, also make us more human and able to laugh at ourselves in the way that Stuart so deftly does.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a petty, mean, miserable person Ms. Stuart must be! If you don't like a town, move. If you are lonely, make friends. If you are so consistently miserable, don't blame your mother! Choose happy. In another town.

[Cathleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was appealing on the surface; a woman has a love-hate relationship with her hometown, moves away, returns home, reconciles her memories and aspirations with reality—and her mother—and shares some of the hard-won wisdom about her place in the world. It seemed to hold so much promise, but the memoir skittered the surface and stayed there. The author admits that her family’s frequent moves to different, older, better houses in Concord were driven by her greed, but that revelation is never plumbed any further. Including segments of Louisa May Alcott’s complicated family life in Concord seemed like an interesting structural approach for the memoir, but the parallels between the author’s family and the Alcotts were forced. I really was interested in reading the memoir, but by the end, it was only sheer will that got me to finish reading it.

[Kendra · Rating 2 out of 5]

My friend got a free copy of this through work and I thought it sounded interesting.

Thus began my experience of reading a book that was a strange mixture of a memoir and a college essay on "Little Women" by a woman who grew up in a Protestant household. I struggled through the entire book, skipping some parts entirely.

The author jumps between telling the viewers about her life story, a story that can be summed up with a few well-known sayings. "The grass is always greener on the other side", "You never know what you had until it is gone", and "If it's not broke don't fix it." The author is a whiner, she's never happy with what she has and is always searching for something better. Her relationship with her husband was weird as well. They just didn't seem to click or have any sort of connection. The author put more weight into her house or childhood bringing her happiness than her actual family. You read the entire book thinking that maybe, just maybe, there will be a moment where she goes "I love my life and am happy with who I am and where I've been." That moment never comes, she's a miserable person to the end. I find that very sad and irritating.

The ONLY reason I gave this book two stars instead of 1 is because I think there are some interesting themes to the book that might result in good discussions. I'd love to talk to others who grew up in a Protestant household to see if they feel/felt the same guilt as the author does. I also now see "Little Woman", especially Amy, in a different light. Mainly, I'm curios to see if other people were as put off by the author as I was/am.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir that studies the foundation of New England WASP culture—class, history, family, money, envy, perfection, and, real estate.

The author does a fine job of explaining how suffocated she felt living in such a culture, and all the social positions she needed to learn to navigate properly. For example: it is not okay to spend money on gifts and presents as that appears gauche, frivolous and low class, but it is perfectly fine and expected to spend hundreds of dollars on meals at restaurants and country clubs.

Sadly, upon her mother’s death, she realizes that there is no one left to approve or disapprove of her life style and child rearing and the author appears lost, or at least unsettled.

My biggest complaint is there are far too many references and historical information(although I know that was the author’s intent) to the long gone and elite New England group of authors, Louisa May Alcott, Walden, Hawthorne and the whole bloody lot of them. I felt these mentions distracted from the authors story unnecessarily.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems I liked this a bit better than most reviewers, though I'm not totally sure why, and oddly, I had this pervasive feeling while reading it that I *shouldn't* really like it.

The seemingly mundane content was strangely entertaining to me, though I certainly agree with the "what's the point of this?" line of thinking voiced by other readers. We get it, Sarah, your family is a little crazy. Except everybody's family is a little crazy. I feel like I should send her one of those pretend participation ribbons people on Twitter are so fond of using to display blatant irony.

In a way it reminded me of Jenny Lawson's writing, like the WASP version of the (self-presumedly charming neurotic) that both women seem to identify as. In reality, both are far less charming and (I suspect) not actually as alarmingly neurotic as they play it. Narcissistic and self-indulgent, just like Lawson, but better written, less desperate, and far less obnoxious.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book and would happily give it a 2.5, but not 3 stars. I enjoyed parts of it - the tales of Concord past and some present. Stuart has a way of tying a past story into her present tale - usually with a single sentence observation - a technique that she used effectively. I enjoy it when I hear comics do that as part of their bit and I liked it here too.

What I didn't like or became tiresome to me was all the Yankee neuroses laid bare. It just didn't appeal so much to me. What is odd is that I didn't mind reading about the quirks and neuroses of the Transcendentalists, but I wasn't wild about reading about the author's own neurotic behavior. An inconsistency, I admit.

[Dr.Suze · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all I can't believe any of her family would be speaking to her after this! Read this with interest as I love old New England towns and have visited Concord, MA (where it is set) a few times in the last several years. The book was like her therapist gave her a journaling assignment - write arrogantly about everything that bugs you about your parents, your town, your neighbors, your upbringing, your children, and be sure to include how if you are flawed in any way it is due to any and all of them. Ugh. And she sure was hard on the Emersons, Alcotts, Hawthornes and Thoreau along the way. Sheesh, get over it, girl. Perfectly Miserable, yes, she picked a good title. It's only because she writes well that I don't give it one star.

[Flannery Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sara Payne Stewart is hosting a pity party for no apparent reason. The author brags repeatedly about not participating in her children's school activities, yet she chose to return to Concord to give them an idyllic childhood. She makes multiple references to having to take to her bed with migraines but appears not to see the irony as she skewers her own mother and the Alcott parents for their health problems. She makes no references to having friends or reciprocal, warm relationships. She makes it clear that she is a miserable, conflicted descendant of monied, but miserly Puritans. She is victimized by potentially having to work for a living. This book was self-indulgent and whiny, but it gives her children fodder for their own tales of woe if they decide to write memoirs.

[Karen Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a great laugh in parts, if you live near concord. However I felt the parallels with the Alcott's and Thoreau were forced into the narrative. Many of the author's descriptions could be applied to New England in general (certainly many towns in the Boston area).

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book after reading an excerpt in the New Yorker. I hadn't realized what great work those editors do til I slogged through most of this book. Just find the New Yorker pieces, the book is sloppy and disjointed and doesn't offer anything additional.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. It's a good take on "coming home" in adulthood, but with so much emphasis on the Alcott family I thought we really didn't get much of her story. I would have picked up a book on Louisa May Alcott if I wanted all of this. I was glad to reach the end.

[Cgburke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever premise of weaving authors history with that of the town and its famous residents, but it got a little wearisome.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive & dull, I thought. I put it down 1/2 way through & never picked it up again.

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the type of book where you feel one way while reading it, another way while finishing it, and a third way after thinking about it for a few days. While reading it, I mostly enjoyed this half memoir, half analysis of life in Concord, Massachusetts. If you are looking for a lot of details in the memoir parts, though, you will not find them. Many family situations are brought up, but few or no details are given. I had no problem with that, since the story was mostly focused on the common characteristics of those in Concord, past and present. By the end of the book, however, my reading enjoyment was depleted. I was simply tired of reading about the author's family life, and about the long gone literary characters she discussed throughout the entire story, such as the Alcotts of Little Women (Bantam Classics) fame. I think the book went on too long. Not too, too long, but too long enough to leave me a happy reader on the last page.

After thinking about the book for a few days, my feelings became even more negative. The book left me with a sense of emptiness. There is no other way to describe it. It lacked soul. In the beginning, Sarah Payne Stuart moves back to her hometown of Concord, supposedly to raise her children in a wonderful environment. In the end, she states she has had enough, there was nothing left for her there, it was time to go once and for all. Goodbye, Concord. She had her book. This unfortunately made her come across like a bit of a self-centered user. Someone detached from it all in a way that she was mostly an observer, not a real participant in school or church or community events. She was more interested in houses and property, than in friends and neighbors. She was more interested in the dead literary characters of Concord, than the contemporary living characters in Concord. Sure, her parents and her children were a high priority, but all of that, too, was mostly about what she wanted and needed.

Perfectly Miserable: Guilt, God and Real Estate in a Small Town was indeed insightful about life in Concord, past and present. It was also insightful about mothering, relationships with mothers, and women in general. Read it for all of those things. Maybe at the end, you will be perfectly happy or perfectly miserable or, like me, somewhere between happiness and miserableness.

(Note: I received a free ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Pete Dematteo · Rating 5 out of 5]

i found this book to be absolutely arresting, indeed. my extended family were nouveau-riche, white ethnic parvenus who tried to emulate this type of behavior. one can mock it all they want but the entire upper west side of manhattan secretly envies these folks, and would kiss their behinds, including the whole New York Times tribe, indeed, more so during the past generation (when westport, connecticut was still considered a place of high-balls and cheeveresque characters) but currently, as well. ms. stuart has the priviledge of being as nebulous as she wants, darnit. we're all human!!! dominick dunne and tom wolfe be damned!! good old concord was on the opposite side of the spectrum than kings point or the hamptons in long island, or even the more toned-down scarsdale, in westchester. readers criticize this book excessively in order to attempt to falsely deny that there are so many folk who make it an attempt to mimic this crowd, at least deep down inside of themselves as they read the Sunday New York Times Book Review from cover to cover with a black labrador sitting to their sides in a too small but quaint little bungalow up in hastings-on-the-hudson or some brooklyn heights townhouse by pineapple row, norman mailer be damned; who are beyond, and think of themselves as somehow superior to, just like the concord crowd), garish foreign cars, suv's, facelifts, conspicious consumption and have chills up their spines when and if they pass a pipe-smoking sociology professor in rotting brooks brothers tweeds. ask any 20 year old volvo owner without a BIDEN and/or SAVE THE WHALES sticker on the back of it. no matter what anyone claims, and ms. stuart knows it via being a member of it, this tribe of folks are #1, and making arguments to the contrary does not somehow make one seem more humanistic and self-righteous. i think ms. stuart deserves the utmost credit for this masterpiece. it was quite clearly one of the best books i have ever read. it must be great to be so utterly influencial that one shuns any type of flamboyance whatsoever.

[Jessie West]

1: If you come from New England, the creeping certainty that you are a bad person is always with you...Whoever & wherever you are, if you come from this stern mother of our country, a spark of your innate unworthiness is embedded in your soul.
55: But even at our lowest ebb, my mother would say, “Well, at least no one can say my children are boring.”
64: No wonder Louisa Alcott never married. What was to like about marriage? She saw her mother enslaved to a man who saw only her faults. To attract me, women need to feel themselves attractive. Bronson had taught Louisa she was almost repellent, in both looks & temperament. My father taught me to feel attractive by thinking me irresistible to all others, through fat & thin. Louisa’s father had taught her by example that men were not to be trusted. From the cradle, I had learned the opposite.
272: George Santayana: everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, & comic in its existence.

[Paige Winn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in Concord and this is one of the wittiest and well-written depictions of my hometown I have ever read. I always talk to my sister about how strange Concord is, how there is something about it that makes all it’s residents uniquely snobby in a more intricate way than just the typical New England pretentiousness. We struggle to explain it to others who did not grow up in Concord. This book perfectly captures it all. All of the juxtapositions of her family with the Alcott’s are brilliant. She challenges the version of history we learned growing up in Concord Public Schools by analyzing and exposing Bronson Alcott’s rash decisions that jeopardized his family. I felt so seen by this book. Sarah Stuart has perfectly captured what I have been feeling and struggling to articulate my entire life.

[Jess Cerchiara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underwhelming but enjoyable. It’s very self-absorbed (although it is a memoir, so somewhat acceptable) and yet I find the writing itself to be very good. I appreciated most the intertwining storylines/correlations between the author and historic authors of her town (Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau).

If you’ve never been to New England or known anyone from/adjacent there, this will be an absolute snooze. Otherwise, mildly entertaining!

I do wish there was a chapter dedicated to her daughter, or more anecdotes about her. Compared to the pages focused around the author’s sons, I can’t help but feel she was forgotten until far too late in the process. So disappointingly on-brand for New England mother stereotypes!

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Payne is an older generation than mine and I found myself not quite connecting with what she was talking about... kind of like someone's well-meaning but flighty mother was telling me her life story somewhat against my will. I thought it was very cute that her research on her hometown, Concord, Mass, led her to develop a crush on Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is a good companion book to Cheerful Money by Tad Friend, also about WASPs, mothers, houses, and other relations who are more famous (Robert Lowell was Stuart's mother's first cousin--the "first" is apparently very key). A good-natured read.