The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country

Rosie Schaap had a solid career as a journalist and a life that looked to others like nonstop fun: all drinking and dining and traveling to beautiful places--and getting paid to write about it. But under the surface she was reeling from the loss of her husband and her mother--who died just one year apart. Caring for them had claimed much of her daily life in her late thirties. Mourning them would take longer.

It wasn't until a reporting trip took her to the Northern Irish countryside that Rosie found a partner to heal with: Glenarm, a quiet, seaside village in County Antrim. That first visit made such an impression she returned to make a life. This unlikely place--in a small, tough country mainly associated with sectarian strife--gave her a measure of peace that had seemed impossible elsewhere.

Weaving personal narrative and social history, The Slow Road North is a moving and wise look at how a community can offer the key to healing. It's a portrait of a complicated place at a pivotal time--through Brexit, a historic school integration, and a pandemic--and a love letter to a village and a culture.

"Schaap's prose is characterized by well-crafted, even sublime sentences, erudite literary references and sharp, dark humor... The Slow Road North is a patient book, exceptional when Schaap shows us what brings joy to her life after so many years of grief. You'll find a fortifying dose of grace in these pages." -- New York Times Book Review

"Ms. Schaap's book offers a warm and generous account of lingering loss and new beginnings, of long defeat and the shimmering possibilities of hope." -- Wall Street Journal

"Schaap marries a reporter's curiosity with a humorist's eye for detail... A nuanced and poignant account of what comes after grief." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A poignant and moving memoir featuring a well-rendered story of pain and redemption." -- Kirkus Reviews

ROSIE SCHAAP is the author of Becoming a Sommelier and Drinking with Men, which was named a best book of the year by Library Journal and NPR. She was a columnist for the New York Times Magazine and has also contributed to Lucky Peach, Saveur, This American Life, and elsewhere.

Mariner

Pub Date: August 20, 2024

1.02" H x 9.06" L x 5.91" W

272 pages

hardcover