cover image At the Still Point: A Memoir

At the Still Point: A Memoir

Carol Buckley. Simon & Schuster, $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-684-80217-6

For most of her life, Buckley was one of ``the last generation of do-nothing women. `Homemakers'--that is what our passports say on the line that designates `profession.'"" The youngest of 10 children in a wealthy, conservative Catholic family whose men were achievers (Senator James and writer-publisher William F. among them), she was groomed for marriage and motherhood, like all the women in her family. But two unhappy marriages in which she willingly played the dependent wife--a ``lady who lunched,'' shopped, gave parties, raised money for good causes, had her hair done and tried to be a good mother--left her with a sense of emptiness and no identity without a man. She became alcoholic and was institutionalized for a nervous breakdown. In her 40s, with help from a therapist, the author returned to college, earned degrees in psychology and social work and painfully discovered a life as a single, independent and productive woman. Her portrait of privileged, ornamental women is at once cutting and sympathetic. Her journey from glittering luxury to witnessing the lives of the troubled people she came to care for as a social worker testifies to the success of her transformation. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)