Best Article Product Reviews

In a town where everyone knows everything
the author of this lovely
unconventional memoir came to live in a place no one knows exists. In "Still Life with Chickens" (Hudson Street Press
$21.95)
Catherine Goldhammer wakes at midlife to find herself newly separated and several tax brackets poorer
forced by circumstances to move from the affluent New England suburb of her daughter's childhood into a new
more rustic life by the sea.

Against all logic
partly to please her daughter and partly for reasons not clear to her at the time
she begins this year of transition by purchasing six baby chickens
whose job-she comes to suspect-is to pull her and her daughter forward
out of one life and into another.

As she gradually transforms her new home-with its tawdry exterior but radiant soul-she watches her precocious 12-year-old daughter blossom into a stylish and sophisticated teenager. And as she tends to the needs of six enigmatic chickens
Goldhammer's life slowly shifts from chaos to grace.

Beautifully written and quietly profound
Still Life with Chickens
is an unforgettable lesson in hope
in starting over and in the transcendent wisdom that can often be found in the most unlikely of places.

The brave
funny and heartbreakingly beautiful memoir is available wherever books are sold.

Jim Wicht has requested a thin black line around the photo.