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“Intrepid and empathetic, gifted
with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a harmonious collage of
worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully
lived.” —Melissa Febos, The New York Times
Winner of the 2023 Lowell Thomas Award
“DeSanctis encounters spies and love interests, but it’s her lushly polished writing that makes this book a joy to read.” —The Washington Post
Vogue's Best Books of 2022
The Washington Post’s Best Travel Books of 2022
Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.
Starting in a dreary Moscow hotel room in 1983, weaving back and forth to rural New England, and ending on a West Texas trail in 2020, Marcia DeSanctis tells stories that span the globe and half a lifetime. With intimacy and depth, over quicksand in France, insomnia in Cambodia, up a volcano in Rwanda, spinning through the eye of a snowstorm in Bismarck, and atop a dumpster in her own backyard, this New York Times bestselling author, award-winning essayist and journalist for Vogue and Travel + Leisure immerses us in places waiting to be experienced and some that may be more than we’re up for. She encounters spies, angels, leopards, shoes, the odd rattlesnake, a random head of state, and many times over, the ghosts of her past. Each subsequent voyage leads to revelations about her search for solitude, a capacity for adventure, and always, a longing for home.
Praise for A Hard Place to Leave
“Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a
born observer…a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a
wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.” —Melissa Febos, The New York Times
“Dazzling….inspiring and beautifully written, A Hard Place to Leave is a must-read for any woman traveler—and a must-read for women in general.” —Forbes
“Along the way, DeSanctis encounters spies and love interests, but it’s her lushly polished writing that makes this book a joy to read.” —The Washington Post
“The essays might be framed as travel writing, but they are just as much stories of self-definition that take place here, there, and everywhere.” —Vogue
“Excellent—I can’t rave about it enough.” —Air Mail
“The luminous essays of journalist Marcia DeSanctis’s A Hard Place to Leave juxtapose the restless search for elsewhere with longing for home.” —ForeWord Magazine starred review
“DeSanctis writes fabulously, brutally and beautifully.” —Electric Lit
“Marcia DeSanctis is an icon in the realm of travel writing, and essay writing as well.” —Air Mail
“These
probing, achingly beautiful essays form an indelible portrait of a
life. Who is this woman with her many, at times contradictory, facets?
She is an adventurer, journalist, wife, mother, daughter, her world set
spinning by the brilliance of her mind, the tenacity of her love for her
family, and the intensity of her longing to be anywhere but here.
Through the very act of interrogating her own restlessness, Marcia
DeSanctis provides us with a tantalizing window into a rich and singular
world.” —Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance
“Marcia DeSanctis’s A Hard Place to Leave
is perfumed with lush, luminous language as she sweeps us all across
the globe. From Moscow to Cape Town, quiet New England to Sweden, these
tender portraits grow on us like a spring garden.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil, New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
“DeSanctis weaves together both ordinary and extraordinary life events to reveal universal truths.” —Princeton Alumni Weekly
“These essays are pulled from a decade of writing and span 40 years of experience and inquiry, with intimate pictures of home woven throughout. They’re honest, warm, and thoughtful. This collection feels relatable to both a reader who might be a world traveler and also someone who wants to take those journeys via the written word.” —Lisa Peet, Bloom
“Never has a travel memoir put the ordinary and the extraordinary in such tight and revelatory conversation. A Hard Place to Leave
brims over with intelligence and human truth. More than just a
recounting of a life boldly and peripatetically lived, it’s a reckoning
with the passage of time, with one’s own undying urges. I knew myself
better by the end of this book, thanks to the fierce honesty and
perpetual questing of Marcia DeSanctis.” —Colleen Kinder, editor of Letter to a Stranger
“There
is such honesty and feeling on every page of Marcia DeSanctis’s
book—her avowal to push past the conventional boundaries of women’s
lives, her rediscovery of travel and solitude, her celebration of
family, friendship, and homecoming—that I felt delightedly transported
and deeply inspired.” —Jasmin Darznik, New York Times bestselling author of The Bohemians
“To
read this masterfully composed memoir is to better understand our
beautiful, broken world, our complex tethers to home and family, and our
own imperfect selves. DeSanctis is brilliantly attuned to the nuances
of these subjects, and she navigates the hairpin turns between the three
with breathtaking curiosity, elegance, wisdom, and generosity. The
essays in A Hard Place to Leave are equal parts dark and
luminous, ferocious and tender, universal and intimate—and the writing
is some of the finest I’ve ever read in my whole damn life.” —Lavinia Spalding, author of Writing Away and editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing
“Mountain
climbing. Love affairs. Diplomats who may be spies, or love affairs, or
both. Marcia DeSanctis’s travel essays are thoughtful, stylish, and
loaded with charm. It’s the kind of book that goes great with a glass of
wine and a strong dose of wanderlust.” —Rosecrans Baldwin, author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles
“Marcia DeSanctis is one of the finest travel writers working today…a spellbinding new book of travel essays…” —Pauline Frommer, The Frommer’s Travel Show
1. Masha
2. The Precipice
3. Cold War Game Theory
4. The Offer that Refused Me
5. Un Matin de Septembre
Interlude: Halloween
6. To The Man at the Urinal in Prague
7. The Substitute
8. Love’s Labour’s Won
9. The Language of Sculpture, and of Words
Interlude: Cape Town
10. Waiting for the Sun
11. Goodnight Sweetheart
12. One Day, Three Dead Men
13. Green Pastures and the Ghosts of Rwanda
14. Twenty Years and Counting
15. The Romance of Traveling Alone
16. Milk Bread Butter Chocolate
17. Headlights
18. Connie Britton’s Hair
19. The Stories They Tell
Interlude: Dog Walk
20. Falling
21. Seven Draughts of Coffee
22. Petra or Bust
23. Into the Cold
24. Winter (With Apologies to Colette)
25. Time or the Sahara Wind
26. Take me With You
27. Signs of Life and Death in Africa
28. He’s Leaving Home
29. Willa Cather in Lavandou
30. Fear and Solace in the Big Bend
31. Brass City
32. The Voyage
Postscript