DIRT: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House

by Mindy Lewis (Editor)

Overview

This is a collection to which everyone can relate: a multidimensional look at the universal challenge of keeping our stuff, our dwellings, and our personal space clean and uncluttered. How we feel about keeping house speaks volumes about who we are, our roots, relationships, and our outlook on life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580052610
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/14/2009
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mindy Lewis is the author of Life Inside: A Memoir (Atria Books 2002, Washington Square Press 2003), which was named a Book of the Year by the American Journal of Nursing, an ELLE magazine “Must Read”, and received a starred Kirkus review. Her essays have been published in Newsweek, Lilith, Poets & Writers, and Body & Soul magazines, as well as anthologies. She enjoys leaving the creative clutter in her Upper West Side apartment to teach workshops in memoir, nonfiction, and cross-genre writing at The Writer's Voice, annual seminars at Empire State College, and recently taught an undergraduate course in writing nonfiction prose at Brooklyn College. She has given readings, panels and presentations at a variety of colleges, universities, and conferences. Lewis lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword Penelope Green vii

Dirt: An Introduction Mindy Lewis xi

I Family Dirt 1

My Dirty Little Secret Sally Koslow 5

No Elves in the Night Joyce Maynard 11

I Don't Know What to Do With You Lisa Selin Davis 21

Family Heirloom Rebecca Walker 29

Country Living Brian Gerber 33

Ba'lebusteh Mindy Greenstein 37

Clean Fights Patty Dann 43

II Dust Of Generations 47

Windows Kathleen Crisci 51

Dirty Work Ann Hood 61

The Beauty of Help Kyoko Mori 69

Clutter Karen Salyer McElmurray 79

Dust Markie Robson-Scott 87

A Clean Well-Cluttered Place Lisa Solod Warren 93

III Down & Dirty 101

Dirty Nostalgia Alissa Quart 105

A Portrait of Ten Bathrooms Sonya Huber 113

Keeping It on the O/C Thaddeus Rutkowski 123

Adventures in Fluff Teena Apeles 129

Cleaning Up Nancy Stiefel 137

Abhorring a Vacuum Mindy Lewis 141

The Mess at Midlife Rand Richards Cooper 151

IV Into/Out of the Closet 159

Transitional Objects Louise DeSalvo 163

Closet Fantasies Mimi Schwartz 171

Buddha in the Closet Katy Brennan 175

Spring Cleaning Mira Bartók 183

Hungry Heart Branka Ruzak 191

V Other People's Dirt 199

The Color of Cinnamon Janice Eidus 203

We're Tired, She's Hired Kayla Cagan 209

Disinfect to Protect Jessica Shines 213

Cleaning Ambivalence Julianne Malveaux 221

A Clean House, a Sad Home Michael Hill 231

The Intimate Lives of Houses Louise Rafkin 235

Ecstatically Cleaning the Toilet Nancy Peacock 239

The Walden Pond Cleaning Service Richard Goodman 245

VI A Clean New World 249

Waxing Poetic Laura Shaine Cunningham 253

Sweet Sheets Juliet Eastland 259

Green, if Not Clean Pamela Paul 263

The Road to Vacuum Glory K. M. Lyons 269

TheHouse We Keep, the Home We Make Rebecca McClanahan 275

About the Contributors 283

About the Author 293

Acknowledgments 295

Editorial Reviews

Inspired in part by “the prime cleaner,” her mother, essayist Lewis (Life Inside: A Memoir) brings…together…an impressive range of opinions and related issues regarding keeping house in the 21st century. It seems significant attention was paid to finding not just a talented collection of writers (also including Louise DeSalvo, Kyoko Mori, Richard Goodman and Louise Rafkin) but a diverse set of perspectives, keeping this collection fresh…”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“CLEAN DREAMS: Thoreau’s dirty secret? He took his laundry home to Mother. And he’s not the only cleanliness fanatic to appear in DIRT: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House (Seal), an anthology edited by Mindy Lewis, who had an adversarial relationship with her vacuum. “For me,” confesses Katy Brennan, “the California Closets Web site is online porn.” Ann Hood, by contrast, has a fondness for dust bunnies. A tip from Alice Walker to her daughter, Rebecca: In hard times your house “must suggest a sparkling future. Room must be made for your ship to come in.”
—O Magazine

“In Dirt (Seal Press), edited by Mindy Lewis (Life Inside), writers such as Ann Hood, Joyce Maynard, and Louise DeSalvo dish on their relationships with the humble work of vacuuming, closet organizing, bathroom scrubbing, and window washing.”
—“Bookmark These” Elle Magazine

“When all the heavy Passover cleaning is just a memory, sit back, put your feet up and enjoy a sparkling collection of essays edited by Mindy Lewis. In Dirt: The Quirks, Habits and Passions of Keeping House (Seal Press), writers tell of emptying closets, ironing, cleaning like their mothers, avoiding housework and, literally, waxing poetic. As Lewis…writes in her introduction, “In cleaning (much as in writing) we make sense of our lives, sort our messes, restore order to our psyches, work out our anger and frustration, rediscover the beauty in our lives and express our love for (and resentment toward) others.” The 38 contributors — who “come clean on how they deal with their dirt in their physical, psychological and relational environments” — include Laura Shaine Cunningham, Patty Dann, Richard Goodman,…Sally Koslow, Mimi Schwartz and Rebecca Walker, with a foreword by Penelope Green.”
—The Jewish Week

From the Publisher

Inspired in part by "the prime cleaner," her mother, essayist Lewis (Life Inside: A Memoir) brings Malveaux together with an impressive range of opinions and related issues regarding keeping house in the 21st century. In "Cleaning Ambivalence," Julianne Malveaux calls keeping house "a dreaded chore for some, a cheerful obsession for others, and a fact of life for most of us." Other standouts include Joyce Maynard, who traces the correlation between housekeeping arguments and the dissolution of her marriage; and Rebecca Walker, who imagines the efforts her grandparents, sharecroppers who "could be evicted without as much as a week's notice," put into creating a stable environment: "They must have grasped at whatever rituals they could...keeping clothes and linens sparkling clean and freshly ironed, displaying fresh fruit... to ease a pervasive feeling of powerlessness." It seems significant attention was paid to finding not just a talented collection of writers (also including Louise DeSalvo, Kyoko Morri, Richard Goodman and Louise Rafkin) but a diverse set of perspectives, keeping this collection fresh despite narrow subject matter.
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Publishers Weekly

In this anthology of 38 pieces, by writers ranging from Rebecca Walker to Ann Hood to Joyce Maynard, essayist Lewis (Life Inside: A Memoir) turns her attention to housekeeping. Dirt in our homes and the process of cleaning it up is a universal task that all of us can appreciate. But while some of us enjoy housekeeping and excel at it, others abhor it and ignore it as long as possible. The contributors discuss their cleaning experiences and how those experiences have shaped them; clutter, neatness, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, hoarding, and dust bunnies are all covered here. This book certainly differs from the usual how-to manuals. Indeed, even though it offers no direct help with cleaning, its heartening prose could encourage even dedicated slobs to raise their standards. It is effectively a cumulative story about our lives and a great read to pick up now and then: the short entries and interesting points of view make this a pleasing and accessible volume.
—Holly S. Hebert

Library Journal