House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home
Clare Cooper Marcus. Conari Press, $24.95 (307pp) ISBN 978-0-943233-92-5
Marcus's eye-opening study of peoples' emotional ties to their houses, apartments, cottages, trailers and other dwellings offers useful, often startling perspectives on what makes a house a home. Maintaining, as did Carl Jung, that one's home is a symbolic mirror of one's inner self, of unconscious wishes and emotions, she interviewed approximately 60 people in their domestic settings, some over a 10-year period. Several respondents excessively bonded to a residence or its contents as a substitute for close relationships with people; at the opposite extreme were those who were unable to settle down in one place because having a permanent abode was fraught with unresolved emotional issues from childhood. Marcus, an architecture professor at UC-Berkeley, ably explores how personal crises, the need for privacy, couples' power struggles, divorce and career changes affect one's feelings about, and design of, one's living environment. Case studies, self-help exercises and informants' color drawings (not seen by PW) of their dwellings support her presentation. 40,000 first printing; $80,000 ad/promo; QPB selection; author tour. (Oct.)
Details
Reviewed on: 10/02/1995
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 320 pages - 978-0-89254-558-2
Paperback - 320 pages - 978-0-89254-124-9
Paperback - 352 pages - 978-1-57324-076-5