What a profoundly moving story of a life. I can recommend another inspirational memoir by a woman...

books:


	• Without a Map: A Memoir Meredith Hall Beacon Press, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 49 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

without a map

without a Map, captured how some women live their lives wondering every secound what happened to their child which was given up for adoptions.

Profound memoir

This sad, yet inspirational memoir is moving and beautifully written. You won't be able to put it down and it will make you think long and hard about teenage pregnancy, abortion,and adoption. Meredith Hall tells her dysfunctional story with emotion and a small amount of well deserved self-pity. Some memoirs of late are written with such little emotion despite their sadness that I have felt the author was removed from their own story. Not so with Hall, she lets you feel her profound sadness and range of emotions and you will be so grateful that she included you in this amazing story.

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What a profoundly moving story of a life. I can recommend another inspirational memoir by a woman contemporary

of Hall's ... That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." True for Hall, true for Rako, and true for all of us. Rako's book is really fascinating, insightful, and wonderfully well-written. The writing simply flows.

Brutally honest

Unless you were an unwed, pregnant 16 year old in the 1960's you would not understand, but having been there myself, I consider this the best book on the market about the subject. Meredith Hall is extremely talented, she steps out of the box with this book and takes it up a notch. Being an unwed teen in the 1960's brought shame on your whole family, not just you and I think Meredith Hall got that message across directly and accurately. This is a book I will read again.

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Without a Map

Without a Map: A Memoir Meredith Hall is so young and so unprepared for motherhood at the age of sixteen. In 1965 pregnancy out of marriage was so taboo. No one came to this girl's assistance. Everyone shunned her - parents, school, community and church. She has spent her whole adult life searching and the events of her life are forever influenced by that incident. This book lends iself to discussions of so many topics( relationships, identity, the sixties vs the present, adoption, and survival to name only a few.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A New York Times Bestseller and 2007 Book Sense Selection

Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father?in her own father's hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.

"Hall emerges as a brave writer of tumultuous beauty."
?Alanna Nash, Entertainment Weekly

"First-time author Hall pens a haunting meditation on love, loss, and family . . . Hall colors outside the lines with this memoir, full of unexpected twists and turns."
?Caroline Leavitt, People (rated 4 out of 4 stars)

"Beautifully rendered."
?Elle (a nonfiction readers' pick)

"A modern-day Scarlet Letter."
?Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"A poignant, unflinchingly assured memoir . . . exquisite."
?Robert Braile, Boston Globe

"Meredith Hall's magnificent book held me in its thrall from the moment I began reading the opening pages . . . a fluid, beautifully written, hard-won piece of work that belongs on the shelf next to the best modern memoirs."
?Dani Shapiro, author of Black and White

"An unusually elegant memoir that feels as though it's been carved straight out of Meredith Hall's capacious heart. The story is riveting, the words perfect."
?Lauren Slater, author of Welcome to My Country and Opening Skinner's Box

"Hall's memoir is a sobering portrayal of how punitive her close-knit New Hampshire community was in 1965 when, at the age of 16, she became pregnant in the course of a casual summer romance . . . Hall offers a testament to the importance of understanding and even forgiving the people who, however unconscious or unkind, have made us who we are."
?Francine Prose, O Magazine

"Meredith Hall's long journey from an inexcusably betrayed girlhood to the bittersweet mercies of womanhood is a triple triumph-of survival; of narration; and of forgiveness. Without a Map is a masterpiece."
?David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and God Laughs and Plays

"Each chapter of Without a Map is polished and elegantly written . . . the structure is shapely and the book yields poignant insights."
?Juliet Wittman, Washington Post

"Hall's memoir, Without a Map, is a devastating story of what happens when a person is exiled from her own life."
?Frances Lefkowitz, Body + Soul

"I'm awed by Meredith Hall's wisdom and integrity, by her gorgeous prose that deepens my understanding of resilience and love, of loss and forgiveness. A courageous and brilliant memoir."
?Ursula Hegi, author of The Worst Thing I've Done

"Without a Map tells an important and perceptive story about loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention."
?Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and For the Time Being

"Elegant pprosed make Without a Map an evocative, thought-provoking read. But Hall's heartrending candor on love, loss and hope turn this first-time author's book into a one-sided coversation among new friends."
?Jennifer DeCamp, St. Petersburg Times

"A compelling, painful, hopeful story."
?Barbara Jones, More Magazine

"Without a Map tells a stunning story of exile and ostracization . . . Her memoir is a rare and clear glimpse into the social mores of the mid '60s, and reveals the state of shame many families faced when an unmarried daughter became pregnant."
?Liz Bulkley, The Front Porch, NHPR

"An unbelievable read."
?Robin Young, Here and Now, NPR

"Meredith Hall's memoir is so well written that it was hard for me to accept that the book had to end."
?Tina Ristau, Des Moines Register

"Painfully honest and beautifully written . . . Meredith Hall has managed to distill courage from raw pain, and then somehow write this gem of a book about the experience . . . A stunning book . . . You must read it."
?Lola Furber, Maine Women's Journal

"Meredith Hall is like a Geiger counter ticking along the radium edge of these recent decades. She gives us self as expert witness?Without a Map is smart, sharp, and redemptively honest."
?Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies and My Sky Blue Trades

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