Courtesy
of Beaverdale Books
Review by Harriet Leitch
By Beth Howard
Published by Harlequin
March 2012
$ 24.95
310 pages
Beth Howard’s first book tells of her encounter
with great sorrow and the resulting journey
that enabled her to deal with her grief. In
August of 2009, Howard received a phone call
letting her know that Marcus, her husband of
six years, had died suddenly. Howard immediately
plummets into debilitating guilt and sadness.
She permits herself to openly grieve and wanders,
the combination of traveling and spending time
with her friends, family and dogs aiding her
mourning. She gets behind the wheel of Marcus’
RV in order to head to Los Angeles. When a TV
producer friend — enamored with Beth’s pie blog
— suggests they make a documentary about pie,
the project becomes a turning point for Beth.
Pie has always been a part of her life, including
when she quit a high-paying job to make minimum
wage baking pies in Malibu. She immerses herself
in the documentary and begins to look beyond
herself as she seeks the stories of others,
often finding that they, too, have dealt with
grief.
With Team Pie, her support group of friends,
she bakes 50 apple pies and hands out free slices
in Venice Beach, encouraged by how sharing the
pie makes others happy. In search of more pie
stories, she becomes a pie judge at the Iowa
State Fair, a return to her home state. While
there, she visits her birthplace, Ottumwa, and
a chance occurrence leads her to visit the nearby
“American Gothic” house, scene of the famous
Grant Wood painting. She ends up moving back
to Iowa, renting the home and selling pies at
her Pitchfork Pie Stand there. For her, the
tactile art of making pies and sharing something
homemade and handmade makes the world a better
place and helped her make peace with herself.
“Pie is comfort. Pie builds community. Pie heals.
Pie can change the world,” she believes. Beth’s
honest, heartbreaking memoir is a hopeful one,
her resilience inspiring. CV |