I appreciated that the author was a liberal, and a feminist, but the unexamined upper middle class white privilege was just a bit too much for me. ( )

This book was selected by my book club and, if that hadn't been the case, I'm not sure I would have finished it. Ralston spends 3/4 of the book whining and complaining about how awful it is to be separated from NYC, then from Austin, TX, when she moves to marry the man she loves. She bemoans the construction of her "barn" home in Blanco and seems to resent every task or inconvenience which is foisted on her by her privileged life. Complaining about the rigors of childrearing, when she had a full-time nanny who came to the home, really rubbed me the wrong way, and I don't have kids! The narrative doesn't turn positive until the very end when she learns to love her new home (and ironically fights to stay there) and embraces what she and her husband built.

As I was reading, I really wished there were photos of her lavender farm, their home, the pool, the thinking tree, but no such luck. Thanks to Google, I found her website and the page for this book includes a nice assortment of photos. When you see the astonishingly gorgeous and upscale barn she and her husband renovated, you may feel irritated all over again (as I was) that she spent so much time complaining about it. Get over yourself! ( )

The authorial voice is so discontented, so whiny in the face of plenty, so relentlessly unhappy that reading this book is less like a gambol through the lavender fields and more like a catalog of how rich people suffer the slings and arrows of too many choices. I finished it merely because I was certain that she wouldn't have written a book that was simply a chronicle of the injustices of her life. I was wrong. ( )

Many have expressed this sentiment, which I agree with, that The Unlikely Lavender Queen is an inspiration for many women, particularly those who have ever relocated to unfamiliar territory, with a spouse (namely a husband who is from that territory!). I certainly appreciated the story, and on too many levels.

All the way through I kept anticipating Jeannie's breaking point, when she would give in, especially when she had taken the trip to Tennessee. But the unlikely happened and blossomed from there. Perfect matches might be made in heaven, but on earth I tend to believe, as Jeannie depicted, relationships rivet around commitment, and sacrifice, and tears, and sometimes breaking points too. I absolutely loved the part where Robb interrupted his work and met Jeannie and the boys at the airport on that "vacation" to Tennessee.

I wanted to write more but because I don't like spoilers, and because it is "likely" many have touched on the other points I'd like to add, I'll just wrap up by saying this story is especially a good one to curl up to on a rainy night, or during a snowed-in day. A humbling read it is. ( )

The visuals that I got from reading this book were simply gorgeous. Not only does Jeannie Ralston paint incredible word pictures of her lavender farm, (hey, with those two words you’re already halfway there) but anywhere she describes in this memoir, transports me. I can see through her eyes, smell the smells and feel the warm humid air of Provence, feel the pavement of Manhattan under my feet.

“We had a boozy dinner at a favorite restaurant in the West Village called Gus’s Place, where I’d spent much time when I lived two streets away. I walked home that night and tried to absorb all the sensations – the noxious but comfortingly familiar smells of traffic, the shimmer and smolder of lights, the snippets of passing conversations, which I knew were like no other conversations in the country. Certainly, I would return to New York, but I was aware that it would never again feel the same, as relaxed and intimate, as mine, as it did that night.”

Her love of place, first for New York and only after a long while, for her new home in Texas, come through very clearly. She seems to take much of who she is, or at least how she defines herself from where she lives. When she is in New York, she feeds off its energy, feels confident and successful. When she agrees to move to Texas with Robb, her future husband, the transition is very difficult for her.

“I hoped for a personal life that would be as remarkable as my professional one. My emphasis on equilibrium was the difference between Robb and me, maybe the difference between men and women in general. It made me more flexible, the one more willing to adjust my schedule and goals. It soon became clear to me that two big careers in one relationship would be almost impossible to manage. If we were going to work, something – or someone – would always have to give.”

And, at least from my point of view, it always seemed to be Jeannie. (Although, since the book is from her point of view, both may be a bit biased.) And that was my only problem with the book. I kept wanting this strong, talented woman to get her way for once, to get to stay in at least one of the places she loved and called home. And yet, she always (although not without putting up a fight) was the one of adjust, to give in to her husband’s dreams. Even when she was able to make one of his dreams into one of her own, he changed the game again. But, since this is a memoir, I can’t really fault the author for the plot.

As a mother, who had quite a rocky journey on my way to earning that title, I felt a deep connection with her as she struggles to conceive. “…in the back of my mind, I harbored a fantasy of announcing my pregnancy in front of this group of friends and family. But such an announcement wasn’t shaping up. March’s opportunity had ended the same way my cycle had ended for twenty years. In bloodshed.” That’s such a strong sentence – summing up exactly how that feels.

She has a great wit, as well. “All the books said that stress could make it harder to conceive, but telling a woman who wants to be pregnant not to worry about it is about as productive as spanking a child for hitting his brother.”
I enjoyed this book a great deal. I felt transported by Ralston’s words and emotions, and got to see parts of a life that would never be parts of mine. Her story is not only well written but interesting. And, even though I may wish things had turned out differently, the truth of the journey she takes makes the getting there all the more valuable.

“I had achieved something remarkable, I felt. I had endured, toughed out the isolation, the demands of a perfectionist husband and had found real peace. I felt that, like the lavender, I was a nonnative transplant that had somehow thrived.”

There’s a quote on the back of my copy that says “Learning to want what you already have is the greatest lesson in life…” (Martha Sherrill). Jeannie Ralston’s story, and life, is an embodiment of exactly that. ( )