Book Review - Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

 Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen is another winner in her batch of books - fiction or nonfiction. I can always count on her for good solid writing. 

Rebecca Winter is a photographer but now facing a declining career and a bit of a crisis of faith, plus her bank account is dwindling.  She flees to the country for a new perspective.  (cover blurb) There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer/birder named Jim Bates, that what she see through a camera lens is not all there is to the world. 

p. 6 I like her description of the country.  It was quiet now. There was a smell. So many smells. Mildew, damp linen, trampled plants. The bananas in the glass bowl on the drainboard. A whiff of what might be skunk, or skunk cabbage. In the backyard she'd taken a deep breath. It had smelled as though the entire forest around her was rotting by inches.

p.  213 She has a new agent, a new project The White Cross series, and a new lease on life.  This series of enigmatic tableaux is both mysterious and heartbreaking. Each as it was found: some images reflect the disintegration wrought by wind and weather. 

Rebecca's journey at age 60ish is well written by Quindlen. She captures the questioning, the endurance, and the world of a creative. Flee with Rebecca and restore your soul, too. Enjoy this book.