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

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

"The book is a love letter to the authors family, her fellow old-moneyed Yankees and even to herself. . . . Its on contemporary Concord that Stuart is at her best. . . . The real action in the book is the deployment of Stuarts fantastic knowledge of this subculture for comic delight.The New York Times Book Review

For all WASPsor anyone who likes to laugh at them. Perfectly hilarious.Town and Country

"Witty, acerbic . . . hilariously sarcastic.Wall Street Journal

Stuart learns, as most of us do, that one can never return to the past or make it anewattempts to reshape the past do, however, demonstrate the tonic value of humor.Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A prodigal WASP daughter returns to her New England roots in Sarah Payne Stuarts Perfectly Miserable: Guilt, God and Real Estate in a Small Town, filled with laughs as long and wince-inducing as a snowbound Concord winter."Vogue.com

Stuart writes honestly and lovingly about her aging parents, her childhood, money, the trials of parenthood and keeping her marriage afloat. In other words, everything. Perfectly Miserable is a gorgeously rendered portrait of modern lifeand a reminder that some things never change.BookPage

"As an exiled New Englander still obsessed with Thoreaus weird little life, I devoured Stuarts memoir of returning to her hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, a place still laden with the ghosts of childhood past: from her family, to the Transcendentalists, theres a lot of weight there, and Stuart writes it all out in funny, wry prose."Flavorwire

"A writers wickedly droll account of how she came to terms with her WASP heritage and the impossible expectations of 'mother' New England. . . . In this wry memoir, the author explores her relationship with her hometown and with a whole host of Concord notables, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathanial Hawthorne to Louisa May Alcott, whose fictional mother Marmeeand the perpetually miserable Alcott matriarch on whom she was basedrepresents everything good and bad about New England culture. . . . Satire at its finest."Kirkus (starred view)

"This is a true story wonderfully told, infused with place and history, with wit and warmth toward all those it satirizes. To call it funny seems inadequate. There is a depth of understanding in its humor; it is funniest when it deals in sadness. I can't remember the last time I read a book I liked as much."Tracy Kidder, Pulizer Prize and National Book Award winning author of Home Town and House

"A warmly wise and elegantly funny memoir for all of us tormented by class, money, the mis-remembrance of things past, and real estate. This book is for anyone who has ever felt guilty, lived in a house, or had parents. If you don't love Perfectly Miserable, text me for your money back."Patricia Marx, author of Him Her Him Again The End of Him

"Perfectly Miserable is an acidic, hilarious, and monumentally self-deprecating account of its authors doomed love affair with the worlds quaintest town."Boston Magazine

Praise for Perfectly Miserable

A love letter . . . The real action in the book is the deployment of Stuarts fantastic knowledge of this subculture for comic delight. The New York Times Book Review

For all WASPsor anyone who likes to laugh at them. Perfectly hilarious. Town & Country

Witty, acerbic . . . hilariously sarcastic. The Wall Street Journal

Wickedly droll . . . Satire at its finest. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Bio

Sarah Payne Stuart has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review. She divides her time between Maine and New York.