A Cluttered Life

A Cluttered Life chronicles Pesi Dinnerstein’s touching, quirky, and often comic search for order and simplicity amid an onslaught of relentless interruptions. When a chance encounter with an old acquaintance opens her eyes to the extent to which disorder has crept into every corner of her existence, she begins a quest to free herself from the excess baggage she carries and finds—to her great surprise—that the meaning she’s spent years searching for is right there in her own piles of clutter.

Dinnerstein’s battle with chaos is an odyssey of self-discovery that leads her from the obvious mess spilling out of closets and the backseat of her car to the more subtle forms of disorder in her life and, finally, to the most hidden expressions deep within herself. In the end—with the help of devoted friends, a twelve-step recovery program, and a bit of Kabbalistic wisdom—her struggle with the things of this world is transformed from a distraction into its own journey of healing and personal growth. At turns insightful, unsettling, and wildly funny, A Cluttered Life is the story of how one woman found her true self—and spiritual fulfillment—through trying to make sense of her own muddled world.