[A] poignant and engrossing memoir ... Like Rachel Cusk, Kelly McMasters writes with urgency and honesty about being in an unhappy marriage ... In her essay 'Peonies,' Zadie Smith...states that 'Writing is control.' I believe this is true for Kelly McMasters — that in writing this vivid, searing memoir she's made a manageable shape out of what appear to be disparate disturbing events. As I read The Leaving Season, I found myself rooting for her, in life and in art.
The author’s candor and hard-won perspective will offer solidarity and support to those who are longing to feel seen, and perhaps contemplating shaking up their own lives. In reading The Leaving Season, an old saying came to mind: Wherever you go, there you are. But what if you aren’t sure who you are? McMasters’ masterful, moving memoir of her journey from the city to the country to the suburbs makes an excellent case for taking the time to figure that out, no matter how frightening it seems.
It’s against this challenging background that McMasters shares a wise, honest, and completely absorbing memoir of marriage and motherhood that is particular in the details but universal in a way that will resonate with many readers. Resilience and reinvention are at the heart of it, as she struggles to support her family, raise her sons, and find community and, ultimately, peace.
a candid, often wrenching account of a relationship’s slow, inexorable crumbling and a survivor’s attempt to climb from the ruin and build a new life. Kelly McMasters is a graceful, fluid writer, and though the subject matter of her memoir is anything but easy, the rewards of sharing her company on the page are undeniable.
As meditation on motherhood, divorce, and creative work, the essays retread familiar territory, but the memoir is nevertheless appealing, told with candor and grace. A frank, introspective memoir of divorce, creativity, and the sacrifices of motherhood.
McMasters suffuses these essays with compassion and curiosity, neither pulling her punches nor succumbing to bitterness. The result is a powerfully candid ode to difficult endings.
