Braver Than You Think

A deeply moving memoir of grief and loss, dreams and adventure, mothers and daughters—of losing a parent while discovering the world A newly married and established journalist quits her job, sells her belongings, and embarks on the solo backpacking trip of a lifetime: her mother’s. As a child, Maggie Downs often doubted that she would ever possess the courage to visit the destinations her mother dreamed of one day seeing. “You are braver than you think,” her mother always insisted. That statement would guide her as, over the course of one year, Downs backpacked through 17 countries-visiting all the places her mother, struck with early–onset Alzheimer’s disease, could not visit herself-encountering some of the world’s most striking locales while confronting the slow loss of her mother. Interweaving travelogue with family memories, Braver Than You Think takes the reader hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, white–water rafting on the Nile, volunteering at a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, praying at an ashram in India, and fleeing the Arab Spring in Egypt. By embarking on an international journey, Downs learned to make every moment count-traveling around the globe and home again, losing a parent while discovering the world. Perfect for fans of adventure memoirs like Wild and Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, Braver Than You Think explores grief and loss with tenderness, clarity, and humor, and offers a truly incredible roadmap to coping with the unimaginable. Her decision is not born out of privilege or indifference but need. If you know someone living with dementia, you know this story. It's yours, actually. And because Downs is a journalist, she knows how to write it. Expect to be haunted and humbled. If grief isn't your thing (no one loves it; everyone lives it), then think of this as an adventure, a fantastic travel memoir. Think of it as a different kind of guide. Think of it as therapy. It's your choice; that's the beauty of this book. You might walk away thinking about monkeys in Bolivia. Or pieces of paper Downs buries under rocks in Egypt. You might instantly recall the smell of a nursing home. Regardless, there's no way around it. You can't go over it, you can't get under it, you can't go around it—you have to go through it. One of the best books I'll read this year." —Genene Murphy, Anderson's Bookshop (Chicago IL) "This is a memoir for people who don't like memoirs. This is a memoir you need when inspirational journeys seem a little too movie-perfect. This is a memoir you will need to reread. In these pages, see what it means to grieve, to explore, and to venture into a world that seems foreign, yet becomes so intimate it is difficult to forget. Life as Maggie Downs portrays it is dirty, a little ragged around the edges, and—in the end—overwhelmingly beautiful." —Hilary Kotecki, Doylestown & Lahaska Bookshops (Doylestown, PA)