For her podcast Family Secrets, author DANI SHAPIRO interviews poet MAGGIE SMITH about her bittersweet new book, You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir, an exploration of the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself. The book begins with Smith’s heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the historical power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.

Buy Signal Fires: A Novel. – Shapiro

Buy You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir. – Smith