Customer Reviews

Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Divorce happens every day. Families split up, someone leaves the house, and each individual tries to create a new life. What makes Catherine Goldhammer's experience unique is the addition of - believe it or not - CHICKENS. Buying six fluffy chicks and having her teenage daughter learn how to raise them disrupts the household enough that it helps to bridge the transition between the old, comfortable life and the new, unsure one in a fixer-upper along the Massachusetts coastline. Sharing a suburban residence with a dog, a cat, and six chicks who don't stay little for long makes for an interesting and hectic lifestyle. Catherine and Emma's daily routine soon revolves around the feathered ones. Goldhammer tells her story with the candor and humor of hindsight, and it makes for quick and entertaining reading. Most of us have never thought of poultry as possible pets. After finishing "Still Life," readers may find themselves opting for veggie platters over chicken dinners in restaurants.

Chickens! Who would have guessed? An amazingly delightful little book! I was captured on page one and couldn't put it down until I was finished. I came across Still Life with Chickens purely by accident - it was a gift for my mother, who simply adored it and suggested that I give it a read. Judging by the description (a newly single woman, starting over, etc.), I thought this book would resonate mostly with women. But I couldn't have been more wrong, as Catherine Goldhammer's style and humor easily bridges both genders. I truly loved this book, and I can't wait to see what Ms. Goldhammer offers us next! It's that good.

This isn't written from the perspective of a woman who has lots of money and decides to leave her husband and start over, with at least a modicum of strong financial support.

Instead, This is a nitty gritty book that should appeal to the rest of us. It is about the realities of being a divorced mom with a pre-teen daughter (age 12) and severely stressed finances.

I love the author's writing style, her ability to observe both the large and small events in her life in fine detail. By the way, the title isn't just catchy but relates to the very real chickens owned by the mother and her daughter. I'll never look at a chicken in quite the same way, not after reading her descriptions of them. It takes a special perspective to find inspiration in a chicken, but find it she does.

But the chickens are only a part of this book. Mostly it is an account of starting over while being in shakey circumstances, in a house that needs plenty of work, without extra money and with a preteen to care for. In the process, a new identity and place in the world is discovered.

Who knew a memoir mainly about chickens could be so interesting? Catherine Goldhammer starts her life over in a house by the sea which might not look that appealing but has charm nonetheless. She divorces and her daughter, Emma who is 12, move about 1 1/2 mile from their old home and begin a new life. The only thing to ensure Emma's happiness at moving is to promise the purchase of chickens! There is heaps to do with setting up a new home and the caretaking of chickens is no small task.

This memoir will surely entertain and inspire. Perhaps you will wish you had a coop of chickens in your yard by the end!

Still Life With Chickens is a captivating memoir of the life and times of Catherine Goldhammer. An exceptionally well written and entertaining memoir, Still Life With Chickens tells of the poorly positioned Goldhammer, her daughter, and their move from their suburban home to a rustic dwelling by the sea -- and the Goldhammer family's transformation from a life of chaotic disorganization to one of confluent diligence and an eclectic servitude to a brood of six newly purchased baby chickens. Very highly recommended reading (especially for those interested in a riveting tale of mother and daughter in pursuit of a better and more fulfilling life for themselves), Still Life With Chickens is an inspirational story of personal growth and familial revival.

Catherine Goldhammer's Still Life with Chickens delivers its promise of being a story about starting over, or restarting--after the author realizes that her life isn't working, and that she needs or wants another life: a different one, a better one.

Still Life is well-written, thoughtful,and funny, with no dead weight. The prose is simple, crisp, and elegant. The chickens in the story serve as central metaphor for the author's and her daughter Emma's transition to a new life and a new home. They serve as both attraction and distraction, enabling Ms. Goldhammer to coax, with baby chicks, her own twelve-year-old chick out of the familiar and safe home she grew up in. The chick's delicate little bodies and tentative hold on life mirror mother and daughter's struggle to transition out of the relative serenity of one house and into another--a house by the sea--a somewhat ramshackle building which Catherine sees in a new light, and rebuilds with vision, and which becomes Dragonfly Farm: a place of love and regeneration.

Catherine's daughter Emma, whom the mother obviously adores, is smart and sensitive and also a source of strength and humor for her mother.

Still Life with Chickens is a carefully crafted, wonderful book about mothers and daughters, abiding love, and the magical powers of place, home, and the animals we love.

A charming, profound book, Ms. Goldhammer's memoir has a remarkable quality-- it is transcendent; it resonates with anybody. The author finds a subtle divinity in the ordinary. When Goldhammer gets divorced and moves from her wealthy suburb home into a small rundown house by the ocean, nobody is sure that she has made the right decision (except perhaps her tireless realtor!). Her teenage daughter, a young artist and a wonderfully free spirit, resents the changes imposed upon her. In an effort to take her daughter's mind off of the move, Goldhammer brings six baby chicks into their lives. Soon, as they care for them, Goldhammer begins to see the wisdom in their actions. With the chickens to pull them forward into a new way of thinking, Goldhammer and her daughter make a new life for themselves. Ms. Goldhammer's story will appeal to a wide audience. It is both witty and touching; it speaks both in details and universally. This sublime memoir is most certainly on my top 10 list of 2006.

This book is witty, charming, and a complete delight from first page to last. When this single mom has to move from her big house in a wealthy town to a tiny fixer-upper, and agrees to get six chickens for her 12 year old daughter, many adventures ensue. She writes with humor and grace, and her descriptions of the chickens, her daughter, their friends, and their houses, capture the beauty and depth of everyday moments. If you like a wise, smart, funny, and moving book you will LOVE this one.

I'm very new at raising chickens & can't get enough info about them.
I've also been a single mother (now married). I have a 12 year old step-daughter with a similar personality as Catherine's daughter. My husband & I live in a lakeside town that seems a lot like the place she chooses.
Almost everything about the book reminded me of me or someone I love.
I think it was very well written & I was especially entransed by the chicken details!

I enjoyed this book. I like stories where the main character isn't supposed to succeed, yet does. All the problems along the way provided sympathy, humor and cheers. A good story!