Review: Poet Maggie Smith on the dissolution of a marriage

NEW YORK — "You Could Make This Place Beautiful," by Maggie Smith (One Signal Publishers/Atria Books) Poet Maggie Smith seems to have the idyllic life: a devoted husband, two kids, lots of friends and a big house in a leafy town in Ohio where her family has lived for generations. And she's nationally recognized for her poetry, the winner of a National Endowment of the Arts grant and numerous other awards. One of her poems, "Good Bones," goes viral in 2016. But the idyllic life is shattered at the opening of the memoir when Smith discovers a postcard her husband has written to another woman. The betrayal calls into question everything she took for granted. Smith says at the outset the memoir isn't a "tell-all" but a "tell-mine," and there are some gaps in the narrative. We don't get details about what happens when she confronts him. The couple try marriage counseling, but Smith doesn't mention that she's found out about another woman until months into the therapy. Other dissatisfactions emerge: Despite her national recognition and speaking gigs all over the country, it's clear her husband doesn't think her job is as important as his. And he leaves the majority of parenting and household tasks to her. Smith writes in a cyclical fashion, returning to certain themes again and again, similar to how we return to traumatic events in our head to try to digest them. When her husband relocates to another state, she forges a life alone with just her and her two children. A series of tweets she writes about the divorce becomes a book, "Keep Moving," and inspires a Mountain Goats song, "Picture of My Dress." By the end of the memoir, Smith is starting to believe the truth in her own words, the last line of "Good Bones" and title of the memoir — "You could make this place beautiful."