Clearances : a memoir /

British-born poet and novelist MacInnes tells the story of her genuinely remarkable literary life. The tale takes us from the usual modest beginnings (this time in England's remote and oft-overlooked County Durham); through early struggles to attend Oxford and find both a place to work and a way to write; to later adventures in marriage, motherhood, and professional authorship. MacInnes details some serious uprootings as well: she's done stints in London, Berlin, Maine, New Jersey, and Mexico, and she has much of interest to say about each place. Her poetic awakening via the verse of Wallace Stevens, her touching search for a childhood companion and mentor, her experience with starchy New Englanders, her loving but sometimes strained relationship with her husband, her dealings with sullen American college students, and her encounters with Mexican moms all make for an amiable, chaotic, sometimes moving, and often insightful account of intellectual and emotional wayfaring. --Trygve Thoreson

The dilemma that English poet and novelist MacInnes expresses in this ardent memoir is a familiar one: Can a writer fulfill her creative potential while simultaneously serving as a mother and the wife of a demanding man? In this case, the circumstances will have resonance for many women. MacInnes was already a published poet when, after a series of unhappy affairs, she married John McCormick, a newly divorced American who later achieved a distinguished career as a literature professor, scholar and critic. He turned out to be a monumentally inconsiderate spouse, subject to irritability, depression and feckless behavior. "I'm not going to stay home and rot," was his mantra when MacInnes remonstrated about their peripatetic and money-starved existence, his obsessive attempts to practice bullfighting, his frequent long absences on cushy grants and his habit of leaving her and the children stranded in remote houses while he enjoyed career- and ego-fueling adventures. With the benefit of hindsight, MacInnes berates herself for not rebelling and demanding the freedom and leisure required for creative independence. She doesn't disguise her resentment, and by the time she states "it is better for a mother not to struggle to write poetry irrespective of her talent," readers may find themselves as frustrated as she was. Now in her 70s, MacInnes has finally found time for her work, and she stresses her husband's "loving-kindness in later years." But this lucid and candid account is valuable precisely because she never glosses over the inequality of their marital contract. "I liberated him," she says, "but he didn't liberate me." Whether she intends it or not, this memoir is her revenge. (Sept. 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Long before women talked about finding a balance between their lives and their careers, MacInnes, the author of two novels and six books of poetry, was a trailblazer. Born in Norton-on-Tees, County Durham, England, MacInnes coaxed her parents into funding a year at Oxford. She interrupted her education during World War II to serve in the Women's Royal Naval Service as a driver and lived alone in postwar London. When she returned to complete her degree, MacInnes pursued an interest in poetry, taking a course from Robert Lowell, who insisted that she wasn't a poet. While there, she met and married the American scholar John McCormack. In the early stages of their marriage, the couple lived in Germany, the United States, and Mexico, moving on average once a year. Her husband's career flourished while hers did not. Their itinerant lifestyle, paired with parenting three young children, left MacInnes feeling isolated and homesick. An elegant, understated tale of one woman's life as daughter, wife, mother, scholar, writer, and poet, this work is filled with wit, warmth, and compassion. Recommended for libraries with large collections of English memoir and women's studies.-Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A mature writer who has revealed much of herself in poetry (The Ghostwriter, 2000, etc.) now, in sharp prose, tells more of her life's story. The daughter of a British village doctor, MacInnes summons up, as in any proper memoir, her father and mother, her boyfriends, her horse, and her little dog, too. In the days when young ladies went forth in hats and gloves, "fresh and green as a salad," she went up to Oxford. During WWII, she served as a WREN driver. Then she joined the circle of bright young things around poet John Wain, about whom we learn a good deal, not omitting the condition of his fistula. After the war, she moved with new husband John McCormick and his son to Berlin, whose residents had changed little since Isherwood's time. From Berlin, they emigrated to New York and after a while to Mexico City, where McCormick pursued his academic career and added to his interests a devotion to the manly art of confrontation with brave bulls. Then he took a post in New Jersey while sending his growing family to Maine. Just as MacInnes grew to appreciate the attractions of the Pine Tree State, her husband moved them to New Jersey, where she taught in the local community college. It's quickly obvious that McCormick was no homebody, more clueless Agamemnon than thoughtful husband, gone frequently and for protracted periods. Indeed, until the final pages, there is scant evidence of uxorious regard in his relationship with his understanding spouse. And a person of considerable understanding and insight MacInnes certainly appears, at least in her own account, taking pleasure in her three children and whatever is natural. Her outlook is always feminine, rarely rigorously feminist, though the title of her signature poem, "I Object, Said the Object," is revealing. Cosmopolitan and decorous throughout, selective as it should be, and written with engaging style.