Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith Hall
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| Without a Map in People Magazine | 3 | 04/24/2008 10:05PM |
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
"I didn’t make this plan. I just wake up sometimes and want to crawl out of my life” (60).
After getting expelled from high school in Hampton, NH in 1965 when it is discovered that she is 5-months pregnant,
Meredith finds herself very alone in the world. Shunned by the community that she once was a part of-even by her friends & and family including her own mother.
She was sent to live with her father and her step-mother during her pregnancy in Epping, NH; both traveled for ...more
After getting expelled from high school in Hampton, NH in 1965 when it is discovered that she is 5-months pregnant,
Meredith finds herself very alone in the world. Shunned by the community that she once was a part of-even by her friends & and family including her own mother.
She was sent to live with her father and her step-mother during her pregnancy in Epping, NH; both traveled for ...more
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Read in October, 2006
recommends it for:
Everyone, especially women
Disclaimer: I work at Beacon Press.
BUT, this was one of those books that I couldn't put down, when I see an excerpt in a magazine or even at work I just get drawn in immediately. I'll find myself rereading passages for the eighth time just because I happen to read a full sentence. Meredith Hall is a phenomenal writer, she writes with a passion fitting to this story. The story is her own, she got pregnant at age 16 and was ostracized from her community--her mother kicked her out of her house,...more
BUT, this was one of those books that I couldn't put down, when I see an excerpt in a magazine or even at work I just get drawn in immediately. I'll find myself rereading passages for the eighth time just because I happen to read a full sentence. Meredith Hall is a phenomenal writer, she writes with a passion fitting to this story. The story is her own, she got pregnant at age 16 and was ostracized from her community--her mother kicked her out of her house,...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to Marci by:
Maureen
Well-written, but there was a lot of redundancy in the book. I think the chapters on her traveling and walking, bra-less, sock-less, basically in a sac from country to country were actually quite long and drawn out. It seemed like she had several moments of revelation--a sudden will to live and then she goes back to traveling and is struck by another sudden will to live. The stream of consciousness is a bit off-putting, but her ending gives you a sense of greater purpose and compassion. I am mos...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone!
**Disclaimer: This review is unabashedly biased, because Meredith was my favorite professor in University... but speaking as objectively as I can, this story is at once beautiful and tragic, a book I would recommend to anyone for both its writing and its story.**
Meredith's undeniable writing talent makes her sad, sad story readable, even beautiful. Though I admit the heaviness of the story, the tradegy of her life made reading slower than I anticipated - I needed to take a break every once ...more
Meredith's undeniable writing talent makes her sad, sad story readable, even beautiful. Though I admit the heaviness of the story, the tradegy of her life made reading slower than I anticipated - I needed to take a break every once ...more
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I never give 5's. Some of my favorite books of all time I've rated 4. Out of the 560+ books I have only a handful I've rated 5. This is one of them. This book is one of the most moving, heart-wrenching, beautifully written, evocative books I've ever read. I had tears in my eyes through the whole thing. It's not like this is the most tragic story ever told. Not at all. It's the memoir of a woman who got pregnant at 16 and gave the baby up for adoption. Sad, yes, but nothing too unique. And honest...more
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Read in October, 2007
I can hardly conceive of the guts it took to write this book. Meredith Hall was a pregnant 16-year-old in small-town America in the early 1960s. In calm, measured, almost lyrical writing that makes the effect all the more harrowing, she describes her shunning and ostracizing by her friends, her town, and her own parents, who force her to give the child up for adoption. Devastated, she wanders America, Europe, and the Middle East, in an almost trance-like state of isolation. And the reader is...more
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I read this book in one sitting listening to instrumental, Gaelic, interpretations of :old thyme" religious songs. The saddening shadows across the Emerald Green were transported in my mind's eye to the rocky and sandy shores of New Hampshire casting a lepraucaun's judgement on the piece. Reading of shunning in small town New England in the mid-sixties, I instead saw the uncertain wife entangled in the passionate embraces with the rogue horseman while her husband stood by her. I saw the ...more
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Read in April, 2008
This memoir is utterly compelling. As another reader mentions, it is not told in a linear way--we move back and forth through time with the author, and there are certainly gaps in her narrative. I actually saw the author at an event in Cambridge a few weeks ago, and it helped me to learn that she approached this book more as a series of essays than an entire work--and she consciously left out part of her life (her marriage and subsequent divorce) because she wanted to keep that aspect of herse...more
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
People who have an interest in American culture in the late 1960s. Adoption.
Although I enjoyed this book, I felt it was one of the saddest in tone that I have ever read. This memoir focuses on the author's extreme shift from a fairly happy, albeit dysfunctional, childhood and early adolescence, and then her pregnancy at age sixteen and the emotional and physical abandonment of, first, her mother, and then after the baby (her son) was born, her father. This happened in the mid-1960s. I thought her parents' reactions to the situation were extreme. The author longs for...more
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The book was good, and the writing kept me engaged. It was definitely a bit of a downer though, and in the end I took the lesson to be less than deep. Essentially I felt we were to acknowledge that actions in our youth (by others, or our own actions) can, and quite possibly do, have lasting impacts. The author is a grown adult by the end, and it seems she is still working to understand something that happened when she was 16. While I don't doubt that her experience was profound, I was hoping she...more
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Read in May, 2008
Stefanie gave me this book to read as Meredith Hall teaches at the University of New Hampshire and promoted the book in the Durham area. It was very interesting, sad, and unbelievable! She gets pregnant at the age of 16 and her life turns upside down as everyone rejects her, including her parents. It starts in the mid sixties and goes to the present. She survives her turbulent life, goes to college around the age of 40, marries, has two sons, and reunites with the son she gave birth to at age ...more
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Read in September, 2007
This is a very lyrically written book, haunting in some of the passages. It does skip around a bit, however. If you are reading it for the beauty of the words, that doesn't matter too much. The fact that it does skip around a bit doesn't lessen the emotional impact of the various scenes, but it can make it more confusing at times. Luckily, she writes a fairly linear synopsis in the introduction, which helped me not get as frustrated when she'd shift from age 44 to age 28.
But I was mostly re...more
But I was mostly re...more
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Read in July, 2008
Having grown up during the 60's & 70's, this memoir clearly brought to mind stories I'd heard of banished girls. Always wondered how it must have felt. Now I know. Thank you, Meredith Hall, for baring your soul and allowing us into a hugely lonely and scary time in your life. When you're young, you don't realize how one moment can completely change the rest of your life. Without question, this memoir shows that. I strongly recommend this book to those who remember life before the sexual revo...more
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Read in March, 2007
This book was extremely moving and heartfelt and stays with the reader long after the last page. If I have any complaint about it it's that you go into it expecting it to be a book-length work when it actually turns out to be a collection of shorter pieces. There is some overlap between pieces and the transition--or lack thereof--between "chapters" is jarring in places. You can't help wondering what may have been lost or left out because it doesn't progress smoothly from beginning to e...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
lots of people
I picked up this book by chance, started it and didn't really put it down except to go to the bathroom and go for a run. Maybe I should have given it a "5 star" rating.
This story is compelling alone--a girl outcast from her small community (in New Hampshire where I grew up--also interesting to me) in 1965 for being pregnant. Hall's experience made me think about what it would have been like for me, a girl, growing up a few decades ago. Her style parallels what I imagine her though...more
This story is compelling alone--a girl outcast from her small community (in New Hampshire where I grew up--also interesting to me) in 1965 for being pregnant. Hall's experience made me think about what it would have been like for me, a girl, growing up a few decades ago. Her style parallels what I imagine her though...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
people interested in memoir, motherhood, loss
I'd read two chapters of this book, "Shunned" and "Killing Chickens" as essays, but the book is even more amazing as a collection. Hall recounts her experience as an ostracized, pregnant adolescent, as well as her years-long struggle to come to terms with the shame her family made her feel. Her search for satisfying connections to other people will resonate with anyone who has made a family because their biological family is unhealthy. I also appreciated her reflections on...more
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Read in June, 2007
a fascinating memoir recounting a 16 year old's experience of becoming pregnant in a small New Hampshire town in the 1960's and her subsequent life path...I heard this author interviewed on the radio while driving home one day and was simply CAPTURED by her eloquence.
I had to stop the car and scribble down her name and the book title and went directly to the local bookstore to buy the book that evening. She writes as eloquently as she speaks. A powerful and poignant story.
I was not disapp...more
I had to stop the car and scribble down her name and the book title and went directly to the local bookstore to buy the book that evening. She writes as eloquently as she speaks. A powerful and poignant story.
I was not disapp...more
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Read in June, 2008
I absolutely loved this book. I cried off and on throughout the whole book. I don't know if it's because I'm a mother or a huge sap, but Meredith Hall's experience truly hurt my heart. I love her writing and the tempo of the story. I love what was told and left untold. What I loved the most was her ability to forgive and live gracefully after being wronged so deeply. It's the best book I've read since Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle. I'm becoming a memoir junkie.
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Read in October, 2007
A well written memoir about the author's experience of being cast out of her family and community as a pregnant teen. Through her seemingly aimless wanderings and explorations, she goes on to construct a rewarding life and new family. The best chapter is the one entitled "Without a Map" when she travels through Europe and the Middle East and survives on little to no money. The author's insight into her challenging experiences and relationships make the book rewarding.
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who thinks they had a bad childhood
Without a Map is a memoir by Meredith Hall about her life after she got pregnant in high school and her family totally abandoned her. She basically had to figure her life out without any guidance from her family. She eventually meets her son that she was forced to put up for adoption and finds out his adoptive parents were very abusive. She is surprisingly happy with her life and has a good relationship with her son. Sometimes hard to read, but very interesting.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.74 (296 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.73 (292 ratings) number of reviews: 95popular shelves
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quote
"I have lived this life, and no matter what otehrs may decide about it, I must claim each decision as mine. I have caused harm, failed in the expectations and obligations of love. I have loved well. What I do each day is carried within me until I die. "
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