About this item
To a mother and daughter on an illuminating pilgrimage, this is what the desert said: Carry only what you need. Burn what can't be saved. Leave the remnants as an offering. When Kimberly Meyer gave birth to her first daughter, Ellie, during her senior year of college, the bohemian life of exploration she had once imagined for herself was lost in the responsibilities of single motherhood. For years, both mother and daughter were haunted by how Ellie came into being-Kimberly through a restless ache for the world beyond, Ellie through a fear of abandonment.Longing to bond with Ellie, now a college student, and longing, too, to rediscover herself, Kimberly sets off with her daughter on a quest for meaning across the globe. Leaving behind the rhythms of ordinary life in Houston, Texas, they dedicate a summer to retracing the footsteps of Felix Fabri, a medieval Dominican friar whose written account of his travels resonates with Kimberly.
About the Author
Kimberly Meyer is a writer and a teacher. In addition to The Book of Wanderings, her non-fiction work appears in The Best American Travel Writing 2012, The Oxford American, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone, Brain,Child and elsewhere. Her audio-documentary work has been featured on Public Radio International's This American Life. The recipient of numerous fellowships and residencies and a Ph. D. graduate of the University of Houston's Creative Writing Program, Kimberly currently teaches in the Great Books program in the Honors College at the University of Houston and lives in that thriving, multicultural city of no zoning with her husband and three daughters.
