RSS
Home
Book review: Every day matters
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
The moment I opened this book, I felt as if I was looking through the peep-hole in the door of the writers home. It was an uncomfortable feeling to tell you the truth, maybe because the book is so beautifully filled with the drawings of the author’s home, his life, and his medicine cabinet for god’s sake! In the most important ways, it is clear that the author succeeded in his effort to get us to wrap our heads around his story.
Danny Gregory shares this book of drawings and observations in response to his wife’s accident which resulted in her becoming partially paralyzed. Living the fast life in Manhattan, complete with a new baby, two high powered jobs, and a nine year old, Patti Gregory fell in a subway tunnel and got hit by an oncoming train. In the midst of despair and fully admitting to a real sense of fear for the future, Mr. Gregory began to channel his artistic nature. In doing so, he began to focus on the beauty of life in all of its mundane and beautiful splendor.
The reader sees and reads life through the eyes of our narrator. The people in his life are brought to us through tender description both visually and through the written word. The artistry is not always so clear sometimes, nor the pace and direction of the book, but that seems to be the point. Life is not often very linear, and even in the midst of recovery and healing, the simplest pleasures can be the best.
This book is at it’s best when the writer describes his process of making art at the same time he is trying to make sense of coming to terms with a partner’s suddenly becoming disabled. On the last few pages of the book, he finally gives us the sketches of his oft mentioned wife Patti. With those images, he writes, “ We can’t control what life deals us, just how we respond to it. And if we are mono maniacally focused on the bad stuff, we are missing the beauty of a half eaten apple, the sunshine on the bedspread, the smell of warm cookies.”
This slim volume offers a lot to the patient reader. It is a choppy read in some ways, but ever so poignant, and loving towards his wife and kids. It is also a very inspiring read for those who yearn to stop and smell the roses, pull out the sketch book and ponder what is all around us.
This book was published in January, 2007, under Hyperion.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
We have been hearing a lot about cuts to Medicaid throughout this economic slow down. For those individuals who receive Medicaid, this is a scary …
For many people in New Mexico, making a living in rural areas can be tough whether you’re working raising cattle or farming. Imagine what …
