Instructions for traveling west -- Realize you're homesick -- Come apart -- Commit to the road -- Westward, a woman walks -- Reacquaint yourself with desire -- Give grief her own lullaby -- Remind yourself, joy is not a trick

"First you must realize you're homesick for all the lives you're not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart. So begins Joy Sullivan's Instructions for Traveling West- a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivan left the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west. This dazzling collection tells that story as it illuminates the questions haunting us all: What possible futures lie on the horizon? What happens when we heed the call of furious reinvention?"--