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
Reading Without A Map made me recall Roger Ebert's comments that the stories of Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes were honed over years and decades. Certainly Meredith Hall's history, in which a 55 year old recounts her life from age 16 on, is to be read not as a straight out version of events, but a carefully crafted tale that allows the reader, through highlights and specific focusing, to walk with Hall through tumultuous decades of disconnection and the loss and partial return of hope. Where the events end and her interpretation of them begins is uncertain, which is what makes memoirs both true and fictionally interpretive. It is probable that her ex-husband, the only major person in her pained community not to be discussed in her book, would have written a differently slanted book. Nevertheless, Hall gives a powerful memoir, and displays a dexterous use of creative non-fiction to tell her tale.
The book tempts me to critique Hall; she has, after all, opened herself up. Is she too generous of her own faults? Does her father get off too lightly, her mother too harshly? Is she the victim of disconnected wandering, or a protagonist who made poor choices yet overly blames the decisions of other's conditional love rather than herself?
However, at the end of my appraisal, I'd still be thankful that she was able to poignantly write about her life. Her decisions to reconnect with her mother and try to do the same with her father are inspiring.
Over all, the book shows me things I know and try to put in practice: to give unconditional love to my children, to not blame others for decisions caused by my own weakness (i.e. Hall's father), and to see myself as part of a community, rather than naively believing that disassociation heals ancient wounds. But I think that Meredith Hall writes too much about her life without providing an analysis of where she went wrong by her own hand. Her lack of spiritual faith (she mentions going to an Easter service only to celebrate the rebirth of the Earth, p. xvii) allows us to see her life as a sequence of events, rather than an overarching theme of failure, anger, forgiveness and recovery. Her ongoing bitterness with her mother, even as caretaker while her mother died of MS, and her fear of a student's knowing about her long ago pregnancy ("I could not have a student knowing my dark and secret past", p. xiv) show a woman still recovering. It is this painful absence of the spiritual that leads her, in the end, to solitude in a Maine cabin, still searching ("This is an ordinary story, the story of a search for a steady course." p. 220).
Reading Hall makes me want more of her works, and a visit to her website revealed that she has a novel and a short story collection in the works. Yet her prose, while haunting and yearning, can't change an unresolved journey that results from her interpretations and decisions, and not from fate.
The first chapter of this memoir did not grab me; it rang a little hollow. But I kept reading, and it is a very powerful story. Without preaching or being sticky-sweet, she describes coming to terms with her feelings about her parents and being able to love her mother -- who had rejected her as a young woman -- and find forgiveness by simply letting go of her anger and being able to take care of her mother when she became ill. Her other relationships are very powerful also -- with her children particularly. I was very moved by the book.
Five Stars for Meridith Hall who not only tells it like it was, but also tells it like it is. The human race is not, "generally good" and this book proves that fact. Shunning is one of the most animalistic behavior acts there is-and humans do it better than animals.
I praise Meridith for being open with the truth, and exposing people for what they can (and can't) be.
