You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

The postcard led to Smith’s discovery of her husband’s affair. The postcard was addressed to a woman in the city where her husband frequently traveled for work. On it, he wrote about their walk together and discovery of the pinecone. Later, Smith explains that she and her husband used to communicate through postcards when she moved back home after college. The postcard, like the pinecone, represents a moment of change. Smith begins to measure her life in two sections: before the postcard and after. The woman with whom Smith’s husband has an affair is referred to as The Addressee, even after Smith’s husband chooses to move to another state to live with her and her children.

Smith hides her discovery of the postcard from her husband and their counselor. Later, she recognizes later that she withheld this information out of fear. She knew that to speak aloud about the postcard to her husband would be the first step toward the end of her marriage; it would mean acknowledging their brokenness. After her husband moves away, Violet and Rhett visit him at his new home. When he drops them off with Smith, he has armed them with a stack of postcards so they can communicate with him. Smith is furious that he has demoted his own children to pen pals, and she cannot look past the fact that he has chosen postcards for stationery.

When Smith and her husband moved into their first apartment together, they opened the window to watch a storm. While talking to her mother on the phone, Smith placed her hand on the windowsill and was struck by lightning. There are many examples of foreshadowing in the memoir—moments that, in retrospect, could be taken as signs that Smith’s marriage would not last. For example, she comes across a poem she wrote when they were dating in which she states that she knows they will one day grow apart. The lightning symbolizes the explosive and traumatic road before her.

Smith explains that people are good at recognizing foreshadowing in stories. If a person read a book about a woman who moves in with her new husband and is struck by lightning on the first day, the reader might infer that this means something bad will happen. Lightning is ominous. In real life, however, humans are not wired to seek out or accept foreshadowing. For the young bride, being struck by lightning was a strange and random occurrence. For the woman looking back on her life, it symbolizes the outcome of a series of choices.

The phrase “The Material”—which serves as a recurring chapter title—takes on several meanings. Initially, it refers to Smith’s second miscarriage. Unlike her first miscarriage, Smith discovered tissue from the unborn baby. She calls this “The Material.” Later, Smith refers to The Material as her memoir and writing. She offers it to her reader, asking them to make of it what they want. The evolution of this motif shows how Smith’s focus and identity shift throughout and after her divorce: Before the divorce, she views herself as a wife and mother above all else, but after the divorce she begins to see herself primarily as an artist.

Smith references a ghost several times in the work. Often, the ghost refers to herself. During her marriage, Smith feels invisible to her husband and children. After the divorce, while her children visit their father at his home, she wanders the house, feeling like a ghost haunting the site of her former life. The final ghost is pointed out by her therapist, who insists that Smith has been unwilling to let go of what continues to bind her to her husband. She is haunted by this version of herself, the woman who is unwilling to be set free.