November 27, 2017
Smith’s seductive memoir interweaves her search for personal freedom with an account of a woman who abandoned her marriage and disappeared without a trace in the early 20th century. Smith feared that married life would be predictable and dull. In her mid-20s, Smith was told a story about Barbara Follett, who deserted her own marriage in 1939 and was never seen again. Intrigued, Smith began researching Follett’s life. As a child of 12, Follett published a novel, The House Without Windows, that became a bestseller. Follett embarked on a life of travel and adventure, got married at 19, and then disappeared when she was 25. While digging deeper into Follett’s life, Smith “began to feel an uncomfortable sensation: recognition.” Smith then found herself testing the boundaries of her marriage. While at a writing retreat in Banff, Canada, she had an affair with another man. When she was about to sleep with yet another man at the same conference she stopped herself, realizing that she was “a monogamous adulteress.” After this revelation, she began to reconsider her marriage and the course of her life. Smith’s narrative is a riveting journey mapping the route of two restless women and their search for fulfillment.