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A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life
“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
“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 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.
“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 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.
336 pages, Paperback
Published May 3, 2022
About the author
Marcia DeSanctis
6 books16 followersMarcia DeSanctis is the New York Times bestselling author of 100 PLACES IN FRANCE EVERY WOMAN SHOULD GO (Travelers’ Tales/Solas House) and 2022's A HARD PLACE TO LEAVE: STORIES FROM A RESTLESS LIFE. She is a former television news producer who has worked for Barbara Walters, ABC, CBS, and NBC News. She is a Contributing Editor of Travel + Leisure, and writes for Air Mail, Lonely Planet, Vogue, Marie Claire, Town & Country, O the Oprah Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, Tin House, and The New York Times. Her travel essays have been widely anthologized, including six consecutive years in Best Woman’s Travel Writing and Best Travel Writing. She is the recipient of five Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism, including Travel Journalist of the Year in 2012 for her essays from Rwanda, Russia, Haiti and France, and two Solas Award for Best Travel Writing. She grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts and holds a degree from Princeton University in Slavic Languages and Literature as well as a Masters in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She lives in northwest Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 15, 2022
In this book's opening scene, a American young woman working as a translator is not feeling well, so she returns to her hotel room in Moscow -- to find a chambermaid standing in front of a mirror wearing her clothes.
It's an ideal introduction to this book's smart, fascinating, relentlessly personal tour of the world. The gaps between people and cultures is never as wide as we might think. And the opportunities for human connection are the fabric of this extended love song to wanderlust. Yes, the privilege of traveling is present and undeniable. But when the traveler is a journalist, or a junior TV news producer for a show whose host is a household name, there's a professional curiosity -- and a show paying the airfare.
Meanwhile there are scary moments in the jungle, decadent times in Paris, and an unexpected meeting with the brand new president of a newly liberated country. Don't expect policy, or even politics; the human element is foremost. That's why the mother-daughter trip to Morocco will leave the most travel-hardened cynic all choked up. (Why that essay is not included in Best American Essays baffles me. It's one of the best I've read in years.)
I can't remember any other book I've read where, page after page, I was making a list of people I wanted to give it to. Treat yourself.
It's an ideal introduction to this book's smart, fascinating, relentlessly personal tour of the world. The gaps between people and cultures is never as wide as we might think. And the opportunities for human connection are the fabric of this extended love song to wanderlust. Yes, the privilege of traveling is present and undeniable. But when the traveler is a journalist, or a junior TV news producer for a show whose host is a household name, there's a professional curiosity -- and a show paying the airfare.
Meanwhile there are scary moments in the jungle, decadent times in Paris, and an unexpected meeting with the brand new president of a newly liberated country. Don't expect policy, or even politics; the human element is foremost. That's why the mother-daughter trip to Morocco will leave the most travel-hardened cynic all choked up. (Why that essay is not included in Best American Essays baffles me. It's one of the best I've read in years.)
I can't remember any other book I've read where, page after page, I was making a list of people I wanted to give it to. Treat yourself.
Read
November 25, 2022Well-written, but too many first-world problems for my tastes, generally presented in the formulaic manner magazine journalism requires.
I can't bring myself to apply a rating because the author is just doing her job. It probably wasn't her idea to collect all these essays into a book.
I can't bring myself to apply a rating because the author is just doing her job. It probably wasn't her idea to collect all these essays into a book.
May 11, 2022
What a luminous book about the intoxicating lure of the unknown and what you can lose when you stray a little too far from home. “A Hard Place to Leave” is a rich telling of what happens when one woman abandons her big career as a network news producer to hit the road and reinvent herself. Each destination in this book offers a glorious feast of geographical, cultural, historical —and emotional— discovery. If you’ve been longing for travel these past two pandemic years, this book is your ticket. It’s a thrilling journey, with love and loyalty at its core.
February 14, 2023
Absolutely loved this. I stumbled across Marcia DeSanctis in my Travel and Leisure magazine. When I saw she had written a book about a lot of her travels, I had to pick it up. The sentences themselves are absolutely lovely and SO vivid. Some of these stories really hit close to home as someone who loves traveling and trying to find this sense of home. A winner for anyone who loves traveling near and far, but knows there's home waiting for you.
October 24, 2022
Makes me want to write about my travels.
December 17, 2022
Some of the essays were incredibly well written and fascinating. However, there were too many personal stories that I felt didn’t connect well with the other stories and were a little, I’ll be honest, boring. She talks about traveling to over 60 countries and only tells stories from a handful. It was also sometimes hard to sympathize with her and some of her regrets and dilemmas when I felt she came off as very self involved and with a misaligned moral compass. Overall, a good read, and a few really great stories. Probably could have cut this book down in half and it might have been a 5 star read.
December 19, 2023
I can’t lie…I don’t know how to feel about this collection. at some points I was charmed by the stories of travel and beautiful diction, but I can’t help but feel unimpressed and annoyed by the author at times. that feels incredibly mean to say about a non-fiction narration, but I grew tired of the book only a few essays in.
July 9, 2022
Poignant, beautifully written and curated collection of essays that is part travel, part creative life, part rumination on middle age but always, always stunning.
June 27, 2022
I have a personal fascination with Marcia DeSanctis because she's a writer married to a stone carver and I'm a writer whose boyfriend is a stone carver, so that's fun. I feel, though, that in her essays she has a tendency to circle an extremely fascinating topic – an affair, a nervous breakdown, a constant tension between the desire to leave and the desire to stay – without ever actually mining it for what it's worth! She mentions having had a breakdown several times, for example, but never really interrogates the meat of it, besides saying that she lay in bed for a really long time. Her descriptions (especially of food!) are really nice, and a few of the travel essays (not all of these essays are travel essays) are quite interesting, but overall I feel this book could have been shorter and also had a lot more depth.
May 27, 2022
This is debut collection of pieces pulled from the past 10 years of Marcia DeSanctis's writing for various outlets. I liked it—the book covers different ground from a standard collection of travel writing, and a lot of it is very interior—the push and pull of home vs. away is a major theme, the need for solitude, using travel as a way to figure out what you're doing, getting older. That mix worked nicely for me—I found her relatable and warm, and as all good travel writing should, it made the armchair traveler in me a little itchy. My interview with DeSanctis about the book is up at Bloom.
April 27, 2023
I want to give this 5 stars because it is so parallel to how I experience travel and life. She provided engaging descriptions of her experiences to the point where I could feel what she felt. Her response to these situations and to life in general really resonated with me.
However, she mentioned numerous times how she travels to return "home." But she never circled back to help us understand why. Time after time this writing led me to wonder "why?" Her home is portrayed as dull, although saturated with wonderful love for her children, and not a good fit for what fills her as a person. And yet we are left wondering why every time.
Perhaps the final scenes leave this question unanswered so that we can decide for ourselves.
Overall I recommend!
However, she mentioned numerous times how she travels to return "home." But she never circled back to help us understand why. Time after time this writing led me to wonder "why?" Her home is portrayed as dull, although saturated with wonderful love for her children, and not a good fit for what fills her as a person. And yet we are left wondering why every time.
Perhaps the final scenes leave this question unanswered so that we can decide for ourselves.
Overall I recommend!
July 28, 2023
Maybe I just don't like memoirs? This was recommended to me because of "how well the author writes." And yeah, it's nice writing. It's also just...annoying? And kinda not that interesting, even though she's talking about (or moreso talking about herself while she's visiting) some surely pretty amazing places. But it's not really that much about the places or the traveling, really, more just ruminations on her mental state, which I just couldn't really relate to or find very interesting or actually thoughtful. It's like she kept gesturing towards something deeper or more meaningful but never quite got there. It also truly felt like this was rather cobbled together and so perhaps a good bit of my distaste is from the editing, which is a bummer.
Feeling more ok with the DNFs this year.
Feeling more ok with the DNFs this year.
March 18, 2024
One of the best books I've read in a long time. In fact, I've gone back and re-read many of these essays two and three times. I have read Marcia's articles in Vogue, AirMail, Travel & Leisure, BBC and other pubs, but her personal essays, like the expertly rendered and thoughtful stories found within this collection, make this book shine. I really can't understand the one and two star reviews here. This book just won a nod from the Society of American Travel Writers, the Oscars of the field!!
This book is NOT meant to be a travel guide to tell you how to visit a place and where to sleep. Go online for that. A Hard Place To Leave is a memoir of a woman's life, told through poignant and well-written essays, and I can't recommend it enough for those who appreciate good writing.
This book is NOT meant to be a travel guide to tell you how to visit a place and where to sleep. Go online for that. A Hard Place To Leave is a memoir of a woman's life, told through poignant and well-written essays, and I can't recommend it enough for those who appreciate good writing.
October 4, 2023
The operative word here is from the subtitle: restless. There's always a shadow of the compulsive in the way Marcia DeSanctis travels, in her lifelong preference for traveling solo, a need she felt even as a child: "'Why don't you ask a friend to walk with you?' my mother would ask. But I didn't want a friend. Not then, and not now. I preferred to drift unaccompanied, unencumbered, and I grew intimate with my own independence. Even then, I think I understood the restorative power, the joyous exuberance, of these stretches of time spent solo." This collection of accounts is often less about the externalities of travel and more about her inner journeys.
January 6, 2024
This was my favorite book of 2022. As a traveler, I connected deeply with the dichotomy of home and away. The author has such an interesting professional background—the essays that take place in the former Soviet Union are fascinating. I equally enjoyed the glimpses into her personal evolution from high-powered television producer to stay-at-home mom to grad student to writer. I found her journey relatable and her writing vulnerable. On top of that, her language is pure poetry. She’s a gifted writer who molds words exquisitely. I own this book in both digital form and hard copy. Highly recommend.
January 30, 2023
For the aspiring travel writer Marcia DeSanctis has provided a textbook. Imagery abounds in this well written bundle of stories written across a spectrum of time in her life. Each story draws the reader in as if they too were in a Moscow hotel hallway, staring wide-eyed at gorillas on the side of a Rwandan mou tain, or spinning out of control on a dark, wintery highway in North Dakota. An absolutely inspirational collection of travel essays
December 19, 2022
I really enjoyed some of the essays, especially being from France I could totally relate. However, there were too many personal stories and also I had a hard time finding the connecting thread of all these stories. I needed more transitions. Probably good to read a couple stories here and there but not the whole book at once.
January 10, 2024
The various places the author travels to were intriguing and engaging. Each story was rife with details of smells, sights, and sounds, as well as tastes and feels. The language was fluid and added to the texture of travel to different parts of the world. This book is for anyone curious about what a traveling journalists experiences on her journeys.
January 30, 2024
Well written. But in the current genre of heroines choosing career over family who themselves are unlikeable and so fail as heroines. Made it through as it was interesting and well written as a travelogue
October 3, 2022
As someone who travels a lot and often alone, I found this book a good read.
January 19, 2023
Wow - A few months ago I picked up ‘Hard Place to Leave’ as a new transplant to NW CT - Talk about timing this past week I needed to read Marcia D’s musings onher traveling life .. And her NW CT Love Letter - all her Essays heartwarming & just right for these times .. Most grateful Reader
June 12, 2023
AirMail
An interesting story about a journalist who loves to travel the world....alone. She introduced me to places I had never heard of. Who knew Jordan has a world class hiking trail? Unlike the author, when I've travelled alone and seen a remarkable sight (Mt Kilimanjaro), I was always a little sad I didn't have someone to share that magic moment with.
My first e book
An interesting story about a journalist who loves to travel the world....alone. She introduced me to places I had never heard of. Who knew Jordan has a world class hiking trail? Unlike the author, when I've travelled alone and seen a remarkable sight (Mt Kilimanjaro), I was always a little sad I didn't have someone to share that magic moment with.
My first e book
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews