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The Crosswicks Journals: A Circle of Quiet, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, The Irrational Season, and Two-Part Invention
I love the first installment, A Circle of Quiet, so much that I read it three times. I've adopted Madeleine L’Engle as an honorary mentor. Anyone who can coin a phrase like "the tired thirties" and admit that her kids told her to sit down at the typewriter and write when she got cranky is worth listening to. I suspect our brains work the same way (except for the part where hers cranks out gorgeous fiction and mine is terrified of the genre).
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
The New York Times–bestselling author of A Wrinkle in Time takes an introspective look at her life and muses on creativity in these four memoirs.
Set against the lush backdrop of Crosswicks, Madeleine L’Engle’s family farmhouse in rural Connecticut, this series of memoirs reveals the complexity behind the beloved author whose works have long been cherished by children and adults alike.
A Circle of Quiet: In a deeply personal account, L’Engle shares her journey to find balance between her career as an author and her responsibilities as a wife, mother, teacher, and Christian.
The Summer of the Great-Grandmother: Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother, whose health is rapidly declining and once astute mind slipping into senility. L’Engle takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life and the bonds between mothers and daughters.
The Irrational Season: Exploring the intersection of science and religion, L’Engle uncovers how her spiritual convictions inform and enrich the everyday. The memoir follows the liturgical year from one Advent to the next, with L’Engle’s reflections on the changing seasons in her own life as a writer, wife, mother, and global citizen.
Two-Part Invention: L’Engle beautifully evokes the life she and her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, built and the family they cherished. Beginning with their very different childhoods, their life in New York City in the 1940s, and their years spent raising their children at Crosswicks, this is L’Engle’s most personal work yet.
Offering a new perspective into her writing and life and how the two inform each other, the National Book Award–winning author explores the meanings behind motherhood, marriage, and faith.
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