Directions to Myself A Memoir of Four Years

Heidi Julavits

eBook - 2023

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A sharply observed memoir of motherhood and the self, and a love letter to Maine, by a writer Eula Biss calls “witty, sly, critical, inventive” and whose mind Leslie Jamison calls “electric.”“An absolute stunner: frank, funny, self-aware, constantly surprising.”—George SaundersThat night, in his bed, I spread my son’s palm wide and tried to read it. If the hand was a map that led to a future person, was there any changing the destination? One summer Heidi Julavits sees her son silhouetted by the sun and notices he is at the threshold of what she calls “the end times of childhood.” When did this happen, she asks herself. Who is my son becoming—and what qualifies me to be ...his guide?The next four years feel like uncharted waters. Rape allegations rock the university campus where Julavits teaches, unleashing questions of justice... more