The Luxury of Daydreams
by Amy McVay Abbott,
WestBow Press, 2011
There’s a quietness to
living in Indiana that some
Hoosiers detest. Having lived
here my entire life, I can say with
some acquired authority that it
takes a certain kind of resolution
to be satisfied with staying here in
the Midwest, especially the part of
the Midwest that’s removed from a
large urban area, and over the years
I’ve struggled to keep that resolution
in place. It comes and it goes;
some days this place is unbearably
tedious and lacking, and some days
it seems like the perfect place to
be. I suspect that Amy
McVay Abbott
has those
ups and downs
too, but in The
Luxury of Daydreams,
a collection
of personal essays,
she effectively
captures mostly the
good days, those days
during which this kind
of life seems more than
adequate.
Abbott’s book is the appealing
kind of essay collection in which
a writer’s life comes into view
gradually, gaining focus with each
piece of the puzzle that falls into
place, revealing a picture little by
little, slowly rather than all at once.
Her story isn’t uncovered chronologically,
and it almost seems unfair
to summarize her biography
in a straightforward way here.
I’ll do it, though. She grew up in
Whitley County, went to college
at Ball State University, worked as
a journalist, moved to Florida for
a bit, got married and had a child,
returned to southern Indiana and
reclaimed her life as a Hoosier.
She writes about each of these experiences
and how they shaped the
woman she is today.
There are themes that run
throughout The Luxury of Daydreams,
and they are the essential
values of the Midwest, the kinds
of values that everyone thinks of
when they think of the virtues of
the Heartland. Family, history,
faith, compassion, self-sufficiency,
a respect for the land.
You couldn’t
write a more concise textbook with
which to teach someone about the
things that characterize the better
parts of the Midwest than Abbott
has written here, and the book
doesn’t do much to shake up any
preconceived notions an outsider
might have about this place.
That’s not to say it’s all
smooth sailing and smalltown
quaintness. There
is struggle and difficulty
here, too. The whole impetus
to write the book
begins when Abbott
loses her job, but what
is the Midwest about
these days if not unemployment?
She
deals with personal
challenges (her
son has Asperger’s
Syndrome,
and her mother
suffers from dementia)
and she
helps other people cope
with their own tragedies (she loses
a good friend to leukemia, and
she does what she can to be supportive
to the woman’s family).
But Abbott gets over these hurdles
with the help of Christian faith and
an impressive stockpile of oldfashioned
Midwestern resilience.
There’s never any doubt whether
she’ll be all right in the end.
Part of what helps her keep
looking ahead with optimism is
her ability to look backward with
clarity.
She learns about – and
teaches us about – her ancestors,
Indiana farmers who never
wanted to be anything other than
what they were, men and women
who stood up to the vagaries of
nature and the economy, untimely
death and every other hardship
that came their way with steadfastness.
Abbott treasures the objects
they passed down to her – a quilt,
a mixing bowl, a photograph – as
a means to remember where she
came from and as an example of
how she should keep going.
She writes all of this in a manner
that’s evocative and engaging.
The best Midwestern writers can
find poetry in what looks mundane
to the unimaginative, and Abbott
occupies a space firmly within that
tradition. It’s not always easy to
look around Indiana and see what
Abbott sees, but it’s good to be reminded
that all the good that she
finds in this place is here if you’re
willing to notice it.
evan.whatzup@gmail.com
Hoosier Values On Video
October 6, ’11
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EVAN GILLESPIE
