Composing a Life

“Bateson has an extremely interesting mind and the ability to express herself with extraordinary literary felicity. . . . Too much truth steams behind the quiet elegance of these passages.”
    —
The New York Times Book Review

    “I want to hail Bateson for finding—creating, really—a literary form that reflects the way women commonly reason and talk. . . . Bateson makes an addition to women’s literary culture that feels absolutely true. . . . In the end we are left reflecting in amazement on the marvelous delicacy and scope of a whole woven discourse about a community of friends and the larger human community in which they thrive. . . . A fascinating book.”
    —
The Boston Globe

    “Mary Catherine Bateson has written about women but not just for women. Everyone can gain from this book, me especially.”
    —Bill Moyers

    “It is among the most inspiring books about contemporary living. It is potentially helpful to women, and men as well, as they make decisions for themselves and those close to them.”
    —
Sunday Boston Herald

    “The book proposes an exciting idea: that marginality can be celebrated for its space and creativity, that women may be on their way to establishing a new social ecology . . . Bateson is passionate, convincing, and well informed. . . I admire her attempt to turn the discontinuity that women so often encounter toward a feminine ideal of interdependence, nurturing, and imagination.”
    —7
Days

    “A thought-provoking and urgent book that re-examines women’s values and contributions to the composition of life . . . Her book is inclusive, not exclusive—men and women both will benefit from its wisdom and its humanity.”
    —
Kansas City Star

    “A sensitive, even compassionate book.”
    —
Booklist

    “The best book since Gail Sheeny’s
Passages
for turning life’s discontinuities into growth.”
    —Stewart Brand

    “A powerful, convincing argument that diversity, adversity, disorder, and disappointment are hardly impediments to success . . . Ms. Bateson unleashes some very powerful ideas in this book. There are flashes of brilliance on every page. She is a seminal thinker and this is far more than a women’s book. It cuts right to the marrow of the society we live in.”
    —Waterbury Sunday Republican

    “One comes away from this book with a deepened appreciation for the positive contribution of women’s creative approaches to both composing and enriching modern life.”
    —Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.

    “An intriguing premise . . . passionate writing.”
    —
Kirkus Reviews

COMPOSING
A
LIFE

A LSO BY M ARY C ATHERINE B ATESON
    Full Circles, Overlapping Lives:
Culture and Generation in Transition
    Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way
    With a Daughter’s Eye:
A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
    Our Own Metaphor: A Personal Account of a
Conference on Conscious Purpose and Human Adaptation
    Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred
    (with Gregory Bateson)
    Thinking AIDS
    (with Richard Goldsby)

COMPOSING
A
LIFE

    Mary Catherine Bateson

Copyright © 1989 by Mary Catherine Bateson
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or [email protected].
    Excerpt from “Portrait by a Neighbour” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. From
Collected Poems
, Harper & Row. Copyright © 1922, 1950 by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Reprinted by permission.
    “spring is like a perhaps hand” by e. e. cummings. Copyright 1925, © 1973, 1976 by Trustees for the e. e. cummings Trust.
    Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bateson, Mary Catherine.
Composing a life / by Mary Catherine Bateson.
eBook ISBN-13: