And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road [Hardcover]

Margaret Roach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2011

Margaret Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as Editorial Director for the last 6. She first made her name in gardening, writing a classic gardening book among other things. She now has a hugely popular gardening blog, "A Way to Garden." But despite the financial and professional rewards of her job, Margaret felt unfulfilled. So she moved to her weekend house upstate in an effort to lead a more authentic life by connecting with her garden and with nature. The memoir she wrote about this journey is funny, quirky, humble--and uplifting--an Eat, Pray, Love without the travel-and allows readers to live out the fantasy of quitting the rat race and getting away from it all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Roach is best known for her popular and critically acclaimed gardening blog, A Way to Garden. In this personal memoir, she describes her transformation as she sheds her corporate carapace as editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and begins life in a small upstate New York town. She expects to find peace and solitude there, a place to discern a new identity, independent of her professional success. Instead, she finds herself untethered and unexpectedly fearful of snakes, snow storms, and silence. A circuitous spiritual journey follows as Roach consults with an assortment of shamans and matchmakers and the occasional exterminator. She eventually finds some ballast in the deeper rhythms of country life and the reliable kindness of neighbors. Roach™s gardening writing on her blog and in her previous book (A Way to Garden) is clear, thorough, and thoughtful. Readers may appreciate her candid, stream-of-consciousness style in this memoir, but it is too unstructured and inchoate to be as satisfying as her other work. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

Perhaps it’s the twenty-first century’s most existential question: who am I if not my e-mail address? After leaving her coveted position as editorial director for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Roach deleted the @ and dot-com from the end of her name and suddenly found herself adrift in both the cyber world of instant access and the concrete world of dwindling bank accounts. More rudderless than any 50-year-old woman with a solid-gold reputation (and AmEx card) should be, Roach retreated to her weekend getaway home in upstate New York and turned it into her primary residence and place of business. She was now Margaret Roach, Inc., but what would she produce? A keen observer of the avian and amphibian life sheltered by her country property, city-girl Roach took comfort in their rituals and habits, adopting what she could for her own unsettled existence. As she moves through the seasons of her first year in self-imposed exile, Roach limns a reflective odyssey for affirmation and acceptance that blends Zen-like wisdom with zany escapades. --Carol Haggas

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (February 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446556092
• ISBN-13: 978-0446556095
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Essays

More About the Author

I garden because I cannot help myself, and THE BACKYARD PARABLES (January 2013) shares what I've learned about horticulture, and life, in the process of digging ever deeper. In December 2007, I walked away from New York City and my job as EVP/Editorial Director of Martha Stewart, because I craved other rewards: solitude, a return to the creativity of writing, and a closer connection to nature and my first passion, the garden I'd been making on weekends for 20 years. I moved to a rural New York town of 300, began AWayToGarden.com (called "the best garden blog" by the New York Times and named for my prize-winning 1998 book), and wrote the dropout memoir AND I SHALL HAVE SOME PEACE THERE. I'm the former garden editor of Newsday newspaper, and was an editor at the New York Times. Today I lecture, teach and blog about what I call "horticultural how-to and woo-woo." (Erica Berger photo.)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 80 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Rambling, Disjointed and Repetitive March 8, 2011

By R. Morrow

Format:Hardcover

Admittedly, I stole my review title from "Eden" because she nailed it in her review. Unlike many reviewers, I've not read Roach's other book and know nothing about gardening. I do however have a naturally inclination to read every book I can get my hands on that claims to have anything to do with living simply and restoring a measure of peace and quiet to our lives (everything her title would seem to suggest). Now however, with book in hand, I wish only to gain back a little of the peace I had before opening it.

How disappointing! Each paragraph pulled me deeper and deeper into nothing but a downward spiral of wordy-mush and confusion.

I dare you to open the book at random and try reading it aloud. Turn to page 40, for example, where you'll find: "And so from the glimpse on my birthday in June to the 9/11 morning in the driveway and into the wooden box out back, and then, before long, into a whole cottage of his own (a heated shed behind my house that became Jack's, cat door and all), before winter wrapped itself around us that year, my days with Jack began." Seriously?

Or flip over just a little to page 45 (try it aloud, again): "No, you don't end up in China as Mommy said all those years ago would happen if you dug and dug and dug from this side of the Earth. You end up right here, right now -- and speaking not Chinese at all, but passable botanical Latin, punctuated with some key Buddhist phrases for good measure, or maybe my own made-up outdoor language in which some Hindi and a lot of Hello, baby, Mommy loves you, all fuse into a delightful gibberish -- or at least it delights me, and the creatures -- the frogs and birds and plants and cat -- do not in any obvious manner object."

All I can say is, if this writing style appeals to you then this is your book. But, if not? Stay far, far away.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Blah, Blah, blah April 1, 2011

By AutumnHarvest VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I really wanted to like this book. I like stories about people who make a career change, either by choice or by chance, and find peace, both inner and outer, by moving to the country and discovering the bliss of a Slow Life. This book wasn't it! This book is a jumble of mixed messages and bad writing. Did she like her new life? Was she really at peace with it? I couldn't tell even to the last page!

I agree with the other reviewers who have said the writing is all over the place! I began to wondering if this author drank a lot of cups of strong coffee before she sat down to write! It just went all over the place and it was increasingly difficult to find any point she was trying to make.

I never did get a sense that she found any peace in the country! She seemed spoiled by the "Stuff" in her big city life, and ill suited for country life. But that might just be because she never conveyed it to the page or the reader (at least not to THIS reader) in an clear or understandable way.

All in all, I would say do not waste your money. I am sad to feel that way, but this book really was a terrible disappointment.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I praise the life choice, but not the writing style March 21, 2011

By Shayray

Format:Hardcover

I just finished reading this book. I think the author's lifestyle change is inspiring, but I did not really connect with the book. I found the writing style not captivating, and the story did not have much meat to it. If you are looking for a memoir without too much depth then this might work for you. I was bored with the snakes and rodent talk, although I see that this process was important to the author for self discovery, it was not an attention grabber for me. Cheers to her decisions to live simply. Not every book is for everyone.