It is rare that I stop reading a book in the middle to track down the author online and beg for her cell number so I can tell her how beautiful, honest, and breathtaking her writing is, how much it is impacting me, how special a gift she is. And now you know the story of how I have Laura’s cell.
-Jen Hatmaker, New York Times best-selling author of Fierce, Free and Full of Fire, founder of The Legacy Collective
HOMEWARD: HOW ONE WOMAN EMBRACED BEING LOST TO FIND HER WAY HOME.
In Homeward, we are taken into the past of a little girl who grew up poor and afraid of everything. In the aftermath of heartbreak, she begins to untangle the threads of trauma, loss, and addiction that are inextricably woven into her understanding of what a home is or should be, and examines her part in all of it. The idea of home had always been elusive to her, so when she thought she found it as a woman, she held on tight…with both hands. Only in letting go can she discover what home truly is.
To move forward, she knows she needs to look back. From the gorgeous trails of New England, to the mountains of North Carolina, to an island in Maine that claimed her heart, Laura’s journey speaks to the transience so many of us have felt in our own stories. We watch as she wrestles with questions that are our questions: Am I loved? Where do I belong?
In this thoughtful, funny, and unflinchingly honest exploration of her relationship with the people and places she’s loved, she builds something beautiful out of what’s broken. Brave and terrified, Laura Parrott Perry begins the search for the place she’s never known. Home.
More praise for Homeward:
Homeward is not a mere book; it is an invitation to live, extended from the hand of a brave writer to the heart of a weary reader. Laura Parrott Perry’s refreshing honesty, unifying humor, and captivating stories, offer proof that healing has no timeline, self-compassion is a salve, and grace is ever-present. Those with hidden scars and abandoned dreams will find themselves ushered into these pages by a most welcoming and “been there” host, and they will come to know peace in their bones.
-Rachel Macy Stafford, New York Times bestselling-author, speaker, and certified special education teacher
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Homeward by Laura Parrott Perry begins with a loss described so vividly that the reader is immediately invested. Then, with care, honesty, and a quick and ready wit, Perry walks us through how she survived that time (sometimes even when she didn’t want to) and how, through sobriety, friendship, and her dog, Scout, she came to re-envision her life-long search for the peace and safety of home. This book will break your heart and put it back together again in a better, more hopeful shape.
-Jessica Kantrowitz, author of The Long Night, 365 Days of Peace, and Blessings for the Long Night
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Laura Parrott Perry writes her most recent memoir Homeward with the glorious emotional confidence and precision of a woman who understands that her stunning command of the English language is as much a gift to her readers as is the story herself. Laura is relentlessly truthful and so generous with her vulnerability and pain that a reader is assured that the inevitable adoration of her as our protagonist will not be misplaced. As a trauma therapist who specializes in grief and loss, I am so grateful to Laura for giving us Homeward, a story of endings and beginnings, abandonment and reclamation – but most importantly where hope and love win the day. I am a better therapist, human, and griever, for having read this gorgeous writer’s work.
-Meghan Riordan Jarvis, MA, LCSW, Host of the Grief is my Side Hustle podcast
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The best written words are ones that help you find yourself in the margins. The ones that pierce something so true inside, you irrevocably spill over. Laura Parrott Perry is masterful at this.
Laura’s latest offering, Homeward: How one woman embraced being lost to find her way home, recounts the devastating loss of love, home, and family. She achingly takes us through the gutting of both a present and a future, with detours into an often tumultuous past. As her life was ripped out from under her, she paid reverent attention at every turn, never once looking away. Her courage is our gain. This book is a gift.
Laura’s bravery in the face of fear, coupled with exquisite writing and breathtaking insight, is a field guide for anyone who has had to dismantle a life, and raze the surrounding dreams. Or, anyone who longs to make a new life out of truth, grace, humor, and a deep love of self.
-Kate Mapother, author of the poetry collections Tell Me You Hear the Riot and c a r v e d.
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There is so much wisdom, pain, and love in Homeward. I found myself highlighting passages, making notes and tabbing pages so I could return to the nuggets of comfort, understanding, and humor this book is peppered with.
Fans of Glennon Doyle, Jen Hatmaker, and Elizabeth Gilbert will have a new favorite in Laura Parrott Perry. Her lyrical prose, searing honesty, and brave truth-telling create a treatise on what it means to be lost and found, to yearn for a place you’ve never been.
This beautiful book is more than the sum of its parts. Each essay is a stand alone gem, an exploration of some aspect of feeling alone and untethered in the world. As a whole, it’s an inspiring and deeply insightful look at what makes us feel safe, and the work we have to do to find the home we were meant to have.
-Julianna Miner
Author of Raising A Screen Smart Kid: Embrace the Good and Avoid the Bad in the Digital Age
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Laura and I shared our first home; we were both born in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, years apart. In subsequent homes, Laura learned of peeling-paint poverty, childhood trauma, love lost and won, and courageous recovery. The home is a psychological thing for a woman. Laura gets this. The wood and bricks that hold us we decorate with our lives. With exquisite prose and a wry smile, Laura takes the reader home to heal. She invites us to be home, and at home, with self.
-Alicia B. Bridgeland, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist