Jane Baker Lotter

To Africa with Spatula by Jane Baker-Lotter could have been a portrait of newly-independent Malawi in the late 1960s. Instead, she settles for publishing her extensive letters home as-is. The result is a time-capsule for the life of a 1960s housewife. It turns out that even moving across the world with your Peace Corps Director husband doesn't change the fact that your life revolves around baking cakes, raising children and providing a picture-perfect home to entertain the men your husband's career depends on. Lotter, liberal for her time, seems content with her life even if she's exhausted most of the time and I, indoctrinated to think the housewife lifestyle is stifling and soul-destroying, found her letters fascinating to read.… (mais)