Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House

March 29, 2010
By turns disarming and tedious, Daum's (The Quality of Life Report
) cautionary tale about “house lust” tracks her dizzying succession of moves from New York City to Lincoln, Neb., to Los Angeles. Place becomes inextricably linked with being, and fashioning an impressive shelter creates a whole life, from choosing college at Vassar because it could ultimately secure her “a shabby yet elegant prewar apartment in Manhattan” to a self-empowering, self-confessed hare-brained relocation at age 29—single, and now an established journalist and author—to the plains of Nebraska to achieve the perpetually elusive “domestic integrity.” Desiring to be that person who “deserved” to have the perfect living situation, Daum is seized by full-blown real-estate addiction, despite her inability to afford anything like her dream place, and she eventually migrates from the modest charms of a Lincoln farmhouse to the “parched crevices” of L.A., where she aims to write a screenplay. Here the locus of her memoir fixes on the purchase of a dilapidated bungalow in Echo Park in 2004: becoming a homeowner translates into being an “evolved human.” Alas, the outcome is sadly predictable, even the finding-the-man-to-fill-the-house with, but Daum's treading in the wake of the burst housing bubble is sweet and timely.

April 1, 2010
After moving around the country in her youth and early adult life, novelist and newspaper columnist Daum (The Quality of Life Report, 2003) finds herself in Los Angeles, single, thirtysomething, and more consumed with procuring the ideal property than working on her career or finding a spouse. (She refuses to let a man into her life until she can pronounce to him with pride: I own a house.) After buying and selling homes in various locales, she finally finds, if not her dream house, the closest shes come so far: a 900-square-foot bungalow in the Los Angeles hills that has fixer-upper written all over it (and costs nearly half-a-million bucks). And wouldnt you just know it, soon after she closes escrow, she meets a really nice guy. Readers riveted by matters residential may appreciate Daums tales of obsessive pursuit. But those less inclined to get dramatic over matters domestic might tire of her endless ruminations about square footage, MLS listings, porch views, and porcelain tiles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)