Cracked Pot: A Memoir by Vince Montague

This book is about the author’s experience with loneliness, despair, and grief after his wife dies in a car accident. A writer who finds himself unable to write after the loss, he explores his wife’s pottery studio, finds refuge in the craft, and discovers the transformative power of art.

Montague captures that gut-wrenching grief and hollowed-out feeling that can bring you to your knees. Reading his words, I remembered specific moments when I had no idea what to do with the physical shell of my body, how to quell its shaking, or how to go on living.

If you’re into ceramics, you’ll appreciate the metaphors between a clay practice and life, and the structure of the book, through which the author connects the various states of clay — wet, dry, and solid — to the process of rebuilding himself.

“How to survive? Look at the clues that surround us. For example, every pot pulled from the kiln has a story to tell, one of them being the story of its own survival. Pick up a pot and inspect it. Turn the pot upside down. Hold it with both hands. You’ll discover clues as to where the pot was formed on the wheel, where it was trimmed, touched, held and impressed upon by the potter’s intention. There are marks from the heat, tiny cracks from exposure to sudden cold. In the same way, I rise out of bed in the morning, hear the sound of my breath, feel the warmth of the bed, the ache in the stoop of my back; I see the creases on my face in the mirror, the graying hair on my arms. We bear the scars of our own endurance.”