One of the Family - An Anthology About Home

London: Ginn & Co. Very Good/No DJ. 1971. Illustrated Hard Cover. 8vo 0602211778 This book is about home: what we mean by the word and the place and what we feel and think about it. The poems, stories and extracts come in a definite order, though you can read them in any order you like. They are grouped under four titles. The first Bring Forth Fruit is about babies: having them, and how we treat them when they are here. The second title comes from a remark D. H. Lawrence once made angrily, criticising people for always wanting something else somewhere else and never `living where you are'. Each piece describes various home situations, wild, hilarious, or strained, various people there and various memories; one extract is from a social survey of homes in a large area. The third group in the volume is called Strangers and Ceremonies; the pieces within it have a rather elusive relationship with each other. Some deal straightforwardly with how people see and feel about strangers when they're at home. But others are more mysterious: they make real for us wild, queer experiences we can't account for. All involve in one way or another a 'ceremony'-a special order of behaving which people use, consciously or not, on special occasions. The last group Exits involves various farewells and departures and divisions: ways of leaving home. .