In December, I went back to England for the first time in two years. COVID-19 travel restrictions had grounded many people since March 2020, and had I gone “home” to the U.K., I couldn’t easily, as a nonpermanent resident, return “home” to New York. After enduring so much gloomy transatlantic paralysis, I found Rebecca Mead’s new memoir, “Home/Land,” about the metaphysics of repatriation, a timely and powerful read. I suspect I won’t be the only one: This far beyond the looking glass, does anyone feel like they know their way home?
After the 2016 election, Mead, a British expat in New York, experienced a prescient feeling of dread: Some “future crisis” might “cause America to close its doors to noncitizens,” stranding her in England and separating her from her American family. While she overcame this fear by becoming an American citizen and returning to the U.K., it had stoked one of the most soul-taxing questions of moving away. Where do we really belong?
For the review in full, visit The Los Angeles Times.
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