Leaving the Pink House

Ladette Randolph writes about the stressful process of renovating a decrepit farmhouse with her husband. Interspersed throughout the story are memoir chapters, categorized by the other homes she lived in throughout her life – mostly in small Nebraska towns, as her family made frequent moves to accommodate her father’s career changes. The book continues into her adult life, telling an interesting story with stellar writing. She’s an editor as well as a writer, and it shows.

I enjoyed "Leaving the Pink House", especially since we are d.i.y. people ourselves! Wondering if the house would be finished in time for the inspection was a little nerve wracking. I also enjoyed reading about the previous homes the author had lived in, as I never moved as a child, instead, grew up in the same house for 21 years.

In her memoir of leaving a beloved house for a total fixer-upper in the country outside Lincoln, Nebraska, Ladette Randolph provides a memoir of her life, grounding it in the houses she has called home over the years. This story covers her childhood, living in various homes with parents and grand parents, moving to places loved and despised, a childhood and young adult life where fundamental Christian religion figured prominently and shaped her life well into adulthood.

The present situation, actually making the decision "to leave the pink house", is made in the wake of September 11th, with the weight of an almost apocalyptic change feeling overhead. "I best understand my life through the houses where I've lived", the author states early on and she then explains her life, her family, her forbears in terms of those houses. This new house is to be the next stage in her life.

While we follow the rough course of remaking this country house, we also follow Randolph through her very early years, on to her pre-teen and teen-age years, her avid adoption of the church to which her family belonged and where her father was, for a time a pastor. We see her first brief marriage to a young man who died too early. A second marriage that ends in bitterness and pain. But now she has a new life - a fully new life with her husband Noel, who is in this venture with her. Her children are essentially grown. She can take us back to view her journey.

While living in the house at the top of the hill, I began to see there were two worlds, what was inside my head and what was outside. The things inside were secret things - night dreams and thoughts, ideas, and daydreams with imaginary people and places; outside was everything else. (loc 377)

And a mention of her reading in an old library, "no larger than our dining room":

I liked it best in winter when the heady smell of the propane used to heat the room mingled with the smell of dusty shelves and old books. This smell, combined with my excitement in the presence of so many books,
created a kind of altered state....

Once I'd exhausted all the Nancy Drew mysteries, I turned to what I came to think of as the suffering animal stories: Black Beauty, Savage Sam, Old Yeller,
and many others of that ilk. (loc 854-859)

Another quote from the author:

As a fifth-generation Nebraskan, I too have inherited these stories. I have few models other than suffering stoically, and I must always question the role such attitudes play in putting up too long with bad situations. (loc 1228)

And finally a lesson that is brought home to the author and reader throughout this book, that home really is the people we love and the traditions we carry on. No matter what the difficulties along the way, if we are lucky to find the right people and places in our lives, eventually, we will find our home.

I do recommend this to those interested in memoirs, especially of a woman coming of age in the second half of the 20th century on the American Plains.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I read this memoir with so much pleasure. I loved Randolph's evocation of her Nebraska, a place I've never seen, but now know, and loved the deeply detailed and sometimes agonizing tale of work on the house. Who knew a renovation could be a Pilgrim's Progress narrative?
The family history, especially the characterization of her father, was such an education, and the story of lapsed faith so instructive to someone like me, who has never had any faith to lose.
I am a huge fan of the house flipping shows so maybe thats why I enjoyed this book so much, either way it is a wonderful memoir