A Hard Place to Leave

Stories from a Restless Life

By: Marcia DeSanctis

Narrated by: Marcia DeSanctis

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

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 best-selling 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 as always, a longing for home.

©2022 Marcia DeSanctis (P)2022 Marcia DeSanctis

Critic reviews

“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)

Lyrical writing but flawed topic

In the introduction to her book, Marcia DeSanctis admits there is a world worth exploring in the four walls of her home. She admirably navigates the territory of a long marriage. She shows courage in writing about the complex emotions experienced when she fell in love with another man, an almost taboo subject. This would be a very compelling topic for a book.

Instead, she pivots to writing about her travels, her way of easing a midlife crisis by her own admission. She speaks of global inequalities, the privilege she enjoys traveling when and where she wants, compared to the massive disruptions caused by climate change affecting people and ecosystems in less fortunate corners of the world. She travels for fun, viewing the world as her playground. People in developing countries are forced to travel, to leave their homes, just to survive. I found it very hard to enjoy the book given her clear understanding of the implications of her actions but continuing her almost absurdly excessive travel in spite of the consequences.

I wish she had found a way to live the second half of her life without such a gigantic carbon footprint. She writes from the security of a happy home, a place where she can rest and recharge with no threat to her personal safety. But the more she flies, the more the climate changes. If everyone makes the choices she makes, the planet will not remain habitable for very long.

I found this book well-written, and thought she did a good job with the narration. She is a lyrical writer, and able to convey a wide range of emotions. But in this day and age, it is irresponsible to glorify a lifestyle that creates so much suffering for the people and wildlife least able to adapt.