Jan 30

Jan 30 I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

Author: Jami Attenberg
Publisher: Ecco Press
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity—and how it saved her life.

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.

It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth—the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.

TL;DR Review

I Came All This Way to Meet You is honest, funny, and of course well written. Jami Attenberg is so good at her craft, and the book feels like a gift she gave us generously.

For you if: You like memoirs about a regular life made resonant in the details.

Full Review

First, big thanks to Libro.fm and Harper Audio for the audio review copy of this book! I’d been looking forward to it for a while, because I’m a big fan of Jami Attenberg’s substack newsletter, “Craft Talk,” and her annual 1000 Words of Summer write-a-thon.

I Came All This Way to Meet You is one of my favorite kinds of memoirs: about an ordinary life, made meaningful in the details. There’s no denying that Attenberg is a great writer of words, and it shows here. The book is honest, funny, heartfelt, sincere, and very generous.

I will say that the narration style of the audiobook wasn’t my favorite. (She did not read it herself, FYI.) Some people may prefer it; I think it was meant to be a more expressive style. But for me, I think the intonation distracted a bit from what were, underneath, really resonant and hard-hitting sentences. I may decide to reread a print copy in the future. But the book itself is excellent enough that I really enjoyed it anyway.

Thank you, Jami, for sharing this gift with us.