Thread Must-Read: “100 Daffodils” by Rebecca Winn

I think we were two weeks into our statewide pandemic lockdown when I caught a glimpse of a book cover that simply glowed in the wintry gloom. 

Now, I’m wise to the cosmetic cover tricks of book publishers. Palettes, typography, shapes and an illusion of simplicity are carefully calculated to draw the eye and whet the book-buying appetite.

Ever seen the cover of Tara Westover’s “Educated”?  Brilliant. Or pull up an image of the beautiful photograph of Sally Field on the cover of her memoir?  Vulnerable, open, glamorous and familiar.

So this book— Rebecca Winn’s “One Hundred Daffodils” — enclosed in a pastel blue background and vivid yellow daffodils was a treat for my winter-starved senses. Best of all, that cover promises exactly what the book delivers.

It’s a warm, lushly sensitive memoir that draws us again and again into her garden as she comes to terms with self-acceptance and loss.  

On the day after her husband reveals that he is ready to leave their marriage, Rebecca Winn slips outside into the shifting morning fog and gives herself over to the disorientation she feels.  

“Here in this place of solitude and contemplation,” she writes, “I can be in the formlessness where I hope understanding resides, though I can’t seem to find it.”

I’ve savored this book through this late winter and I’m sending a copy to every member of the Kerri Miller Book Circle.  

I think you’d find it restorative as well, which is why my Thread Must-Read this week is Rebecca Winn’s “One Hundred Daffodils.”

You can listen to my conversation with Winn here.