At 60, photographer Rebecca Winter is facing a decline in demand for her work and, more worryingly, a decline in her bank balance as the royalties from her most famous photo series, "Still Life with Bread Crumbs," have slowed to a trickle. To keep from having to sell her beloved New York City apartment, she rents it to a couple from California and moves into a not-quite-as-expected rental cottage in upstate New York. The money from her apartment will be enough to pay for her mother's nursing home, help with her father's rent, pay her own insurance premiums and occasionally help out her son.
Thus, the foundation is laid for Anna Quindlen's "Still Life with Bread Crumbs," a humorous yet moving story of second chances and life begun anew in a radically unfamiliar setting. Rebecca is confronted with a raccoon in the attic, stray dogs and the flying bullets of hunters in the woods outside her new back door. All are things which are totally alien to her and cause her to continually second guess her decision to leave New York, no matter how financially necessary.
Easing the transition somewhat are the locals she meets in the tiny town. Sarah, the garrulous, yet kind-hearted owner of Tea for Two (Or More), the only place with wireless and good coffee. Tad, former child singing prodigy (until puberty hit with a vengeance at exactly the wrong moment), who makes his living as a professional clown and is a huge fan of Rebecca's work. And, of course, Jim Bates, the local roofer who helps out with the aforementioned raccoon and offers Rebecca a way to make some much-needed cash: photographing eagles and hawks for the same state wildlife agency that pays him to use a tracking device to keep tabs on birds they've chipped.
As Rebecca settles into a routine, she begins to feel like she's seeing the world in three-dimensions for the first time in her life, instead of the usual two she sees through her camera lens. She looks back at the life she's lived so far and at its disappointments. And ever so slowly, she starts to see a glimmer into a future she never expected, with a chance for love, in a place she couldn't have imagined. This transformation leads to one in her photography as well, and she begins a new series of photos that could be the way back to her life and home in the city. But is that really where she wants to be, or even where she belongs?
Anna Quindlen's novel with its spare, yet rich language and lovely, all-too-human characters is a fabulous read. One I highly recommend.
Lisa Sanning is Adult Services Librarian at Missouri River Regional Library.