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

from lorimarie

This book was very well written and so totally captured that special something that New Englanders feel about themselves! Having spent several years in New Hampshire, I could identify with so much in this story. I think Sarah Payne Stuart has a great voice, I'd love to read some fiction by her.

from lahochstetler

There are problems with this book. It is horribly self-indulgent. There are plenty of parts that are not very interesting. What this book does have, however, is one of the best and clearest expressions of New England guilt that I have ever read. Stuart gets it. She feels that incessant, narcissis...

from minacee

Stuart is a prodigal daughter who leaves NYC to settle in Concord, Massachusetts to give her children the idyllic childhood she remembers having. There is just one little thing: her childhood, while certainly not horrifyingly tragic, was by no means idyllic. Stuart knows this and her kids probabl...

from l-mo

A strange cross between a memoir and several biographies, Perfectly Miserable failed to impress. While well written, it was very difficult to connect with the author and even harder to want to keep reading. I'm glad I stuck with it for the last quarter of the book,where the author goes into decen...

from karenweyant

Perfectly Miserable follows the author's move back to Concord, Massachusetts, her childhood home. Intertwining her personal history along with the family histories of such literary figures as the Alcotts, the Emersons, and the Hawthornes, Stuart explores New England's relationships with money, re...