“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.
"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. ... 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"--Publisher marketing.
Praise for A Hard Place to Leave
“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
“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
“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
“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
“DeSanctis writes fabulously, brutally and beautifully.” —Electric Lit
