I Came All This Way To Meet You: Writing Myself Home

In this latest work, novelist Attenberg (The Middlesteins; Saint Mazie) bravely shares the many lives she has lived at once—jobs held, identities navigated, homes left and returned to, hopes lost and found—all in order to support and sustain herself as a writer. She weaves together stories from her childhood with moments of raw self-examination and social critique in ways that pull her readers close to her, while always reminding them that they cannot truly share in the struggle, the fight that makes her stories so urgent. Readers follow along as she traces her path to becoming a writer, from shelving books at a local college library in her native California, to teaching fiction in Lithuania, where she began to explore her own personal family history as the descendent of Russian immigrants. Her memoir is a travelogue of sorts, taking her to Germany and Italy and more, as she navigates friendships, relationships, and her own writing career.