"This was by far one of the best memoirs of a person’s childhood in a long time. But it was not really a memoir — it was characterized as autobiographical fiction.

The main character is Marcia who at the beginning of the book was about 5 years old. One of her claims to fame throughout the book is her memory – she can remember anything and everything much to the astonishment of those she meets. Her older sister, Lena, was 6 and her baby sister, Flossie, was 2. Their father is Harry and their mother is Daisy. I don’t want to give too much away in this review because I hope you consider reading the book. It is super good!

I will relate one passage from the book as just an example of her writing for which a good deal of the time I was smiling to myself (the characters are so funny). In this passage the three sisters, Lena, Marcia, and Flossie are leaving one home (one of their aunts and uncles, Aunt Bess and Uncle Louie) because Lena feels they are not wanted so they are going to their aunt’s (Aunt Lois). Time period is 1910 and location is Ohio (I do believe): They plan on getting to Aunt Lois’s place by train.
‧ Uncle Louie was disturbed by their sudden departure, but afraid to tempt Fate by forbidding it. They didn’t need tickets after all, for a freight train ambled along with an engineer and brakeman from the London Junction yards, so they rode free in the caboose, singing all the way for the edification of the other occupants, the county sheriff and a swarthy gentleman handcuffed to him, enroute to the state penitentiary. The swarthy gentlemen was stimulated to sing “Santa Lucia” and “Funicula,” in Italian, and readily taught them to the girls, so they felt the trip was highly worthwhile.

At times I laughed out loud. A few times details told were disturbing. The inner sleeve of the dust jacket describes the book as a factionalized memoir of her difficult childhood. I was halfway through the book and I disagreed with this characterization...sure her father wasn’t slated to win Father of the Year award, and they were not living in the lap of luxury but still things were pretty much OK for the three sisters. Then I got to the part where their father Harry remarries (after Daisy dies), and then the book is about life with their new stepmother and father....and then I could see that the book was correctly characterized. ☹

At almost all times the writing was superb. I was reminded of Barbara Comyn’s writing when I read this book. If you haven’t read anything by her, may I recommend: ‘Sisters by A River’ or ‘Mr. Fox’ or ‘The House of Dolls’ or ’ A Touch of Mistletoe’. Comyns at times is laugh out loud funny and her characters say or think or do some of the most outrageous things! And so it was like that in this book.

Note:
It’s available for free to read online at:

Reviews (I find it hard to believe that I could find so few reviews of this book! This autobiographical fiction would seem like a natural for Persephone to re-issue):
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‧ "Reading My Home is Far Away, one inevitably wonders why Powell never found an audience. The most likely reason is that her books are devoid of the earnestness that has always been for most Americans the only sure sign of true art. Like all satirists, Powell was in deadly earnest, but she never saw any reason to be tiresome about it. Her touch was light, her tone whip-smart, ... My Home is Far Away is one of the permanent masterpieces of childhood, comparable with David Copperfield, What Maisie Knew and the early reminiscences of Colette. . . . Dawn Powell is one of this country's least recognized great novelists." - Terry Teachout, New York Times Book Review
‧ "A book this good can be only one thing: A classic." - Newsday"

Gretchen Rubin has read A Man Called Ove

Roman Clodia is on page 301 of 436 of The Ladies’ Paradise: 'Mouret's greatest source of power was publicity. He spent as much as three hundred thousand francs a year on catalogues, advertisements and posters... He declared that Woman was helpless against advertisements... he had discovered that she could not resist a bargain, that she bought things without needing them if she thought she was getting them cheaply.'

"What I feel most often when reading a William Maxwell novel is that someone has drawn the curtains back at my neighbor’s house, allowing me to look in without any chance of being detected, because he writes about the small things in a relationship that generally happen behind closed blinds. Time Will Darken It is no exception, for when we meet Martha and Austen King they are in their bedroom having one of those domestic spats that most married people can recognize immediately. Martha is pouting and refusing to go downstairs because Austen has invited the Potters, friends of his dead father, and their two children to spend an indefinite portion of the summer at the King home. Austen feels a bit trapped into the situation, and Martha feels blind-sided. It is just a forewarning of how wrong this entire visit is destined to be.

Austen is a bit clueless as to what Martha needs, although I would hardly fault him entirely, since her behavior is most often very childish and immature.

If he had held her a moment longer he would have given her all the reassurance she needed for some time to come, but he remembered the people downstairs, and let go. It was not his failure entirely. Women are never ready to let go of love at the point where men are satisfied and able to turn to something else. It is a fault of timing that affects the whole human race. There is no telling how much harm it has caused.

The Potters have brought with them their daughter, Nora. She is bored and just at that age to wish to be swept away by a slightly older man, and Austen becomes the object of her infatuation. Her bumbling parents present another problem in her life, as she deals with her failures to understand them and her desires to be independent of them.

There is nothing so difficult to arrive at as the nature and personality of one’s parents. Death, about which so much mystery is made, is perhaps no mystery at all. But the history of one’s parents has to be pieced together from fragments, their motives and character guessed at, and the truth about them remains deeply buried, like a boulder that projects one small surface above the level of smooth lawn, and when you come to dig around it, proves to be too large ever to move, though each year’s frost forces it up a little higher.

The Potters are not only a difficulty for Nora and her brother, they bring more trouble to Austen than just an inconvenient visit. Martha's life and her relationship with Austen are impacted, as well. As in any good tragic play, there is a transition for these characters that sees none of them in the autumn as they were when the summer began.

I did not develop any appreciable affection for any of the characters, but I did find them all realistic. Austen’s handling of Nora’s ridiculous profession of love is a study in what not to do, despite his intentions being well-meant. The story revolves around him, and he is far too trusting and almost completely lacking in any innate sense of skepticism or vision. He accepts responsibility in the wrong situations and fails to assume it in the parts of his life that literally demand it.

Maxwell, himself, never appears to be blaming or excusing anyone. He seems, rather, to be putting the story in vivid detail before us and saying, “This is life. It is what goes on behind the curtain. Most people neither know nor seek the truth of it, some do not wish to look behind the curtain at all, but you need not be evil to inflict pain upon one another.” It is this revelatory nature of Maxwell’s writing that lends it its timelessness. Nothing is simple in Maxwell's world. Man is complex--in the midst of a peaceful life he can create chaos, or in the middle of a storm he can find peace, but all too often, that peace cannot be trusted.

The storm had released all the accumulated tension of the long hot day. He didn’t mind being marooned in the barn or the fact that the house was full of visitors. Something inside him, he did not know what, had broken loose, had swung free, leaving him utterly calm and at peace with the world."