About Two Houses. Two Painters. Two Parents
I go between my parents as I would two worlds. I have two identities. They do not talk to each other; they do not know who I am with the other.
– Eliza Anderson, Two Houses, A Memoir of Art and Divorce (in progress)
Join me as I excavate my late mother’s loft, where she lived and painted for 40 years. I’m writing stories of life in Soho and Park Slope during the 70s and 80s and my parents’ art world of the 50s and 60s. Posts are illustrated with the work of Mimi Weisbord and Lennart Anderson, whose names rarely appeared together during their long-divorced lives. My mother often said, “Stay out of my studio!” and so I never explored there. Now it’s mine to share with you.
“Two Houses is so powerful and wrenching! What a tale you’re telling.”
- Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home, recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships
"You're a brilliant and indefatigable detective, and I'm fascinated by what you've found here."
– Joan Larkin, recipient of Lambda Literary Awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy of Poets
Lennart Anderson and Mimi Weisbord married in 1958 and split apart during the women’s movement in 1972.
Until 1978, they lived two blocks from each other in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Then Mimi bought a loft in Soho, and my brother and I rode the subway between the boroughs. My childhood was divided between them.
Lennart died in 2015. Mimi died in 2020. Her loft was left packed with artwork, letters, manuscripts, photos, and journals. These included materials she’d saved over decades, from my parents’ life together, from when our family was still intact. Writing is how I survived the task of digging out her studio and living spaces (along with enormous support from my spouse, Kim). During that year-and-a-half-long excavation, I drafted a memoir.
But there is too much for one book, so I continue on Substack.
Thank you for joining me.
Praise for the manuscript, Two Houses, A Memoir of Art and Divorce:
“I couldn’t put it down. I started reading when I got it and until late that night […]
you’re an irresistible writer.” – Fran McCullough, the first recipient of the PEN/Roger Klein Award for Editing and Sylvia Plath’s editor at Harper
“This memoir reads at times like a true crime novel, at times like an art history lesson, at times like a feminist manifesto. The writing is beautiful […] driven by humor, passion, anger, and self-doubt […] you dig to know your parents despite the risks to yourself and your very foundation […] a condemnation that becomes a call to forgiveness. Universally compelling. I loved it.” – Emily Rinkema, Pushcart-nominated short fiction writer, winner of the 2024 Lascaux Prize and 2024 Cambridge Prize for Flash Fiction
“This is the book you were always meant to write.” – Joan Larkin, recipient of Lambda Literary Awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy of Poets
