News & Reviews…
“One of the most beautifully written books I have ever read…McMasters is a literary giant.” —Zibby Owens, author of Bookends
“Heart-wrenching and nuanced…McMasters shows us how when our dreams unravel we may restitch them anew. This is a book of mourning and its opposite—a hallelujah.”
—Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for Zion
I loved this profound and beautiful book so much I want to press a copy into the hands of everyone I pass on the street. Never have I encountered a memoir that explores motherhood and marriage with such warmth, intimacy, and wisdom. This is a book that will forever change the way you see your world—and yourself. If you loved Cheryl Strayed's Wild or Claire Dederer's Love and Trouble, you must read The Leaving Season immediately."
—Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
"In her gorgeously written memoir, The Leaving Season, Kelly McMasters navigates through—and ultimately out of—the very real yet unmappable space that a marriage occupies. Her story is one of a kind and yet pieces felt familiar: the gradual estrangement, the power imbalances, the anguish around the decision to stay or go, and the surprising discovery that, as a single mother, 'the load felt lighter, the house brighter.' This book, written by a complete stranger, made me feel a sense of community. What a profound gift."
—Maggie Smith, author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful
A memoir in intimate essays navigating marriage and motherhood, art and ambition, grief and nostalgia, and the elusive concept of home.
In The Leaving Season, McMasters chronicles the heady rush of falling in love and carving out a life in the city, the slow dissolution of her relationship in an isolated farmhouse, and the complexities of making a new home for herself and her children as a single parent. She delves into the tricky and often devastating balance between seeing and being seen; loss and longing; desire and doubt; and the paradox of leaving what you love in order to survive.
Whether considering masculinity in the countryside through the life of a freemartin calf, the vulnerability of new motherhood in the wake of a car crash, or the power of community pulsing through an independent bookshop, The Leaving Season finds in every ending a new beginning.
I tore through The Leaving Season as though I was on fire and had to finish it before I could reach a bucket of water. McMasters lays bare the vast, unchartable difference between the way things look from the outside and the experience of being inside a marriage, a painting, a place, a home. Everyone who has ever had to step outside of a picture in order to see it clearly will recognize the grief and triumph of her choices.
—Gina Frangello, author of Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
PRESS
Good Morning America: 15 Fresh Books to Get Lost in This May
Oprah Daily: Excerpt from The Leaving Season (The Secret Friend Who Helped Me Leave My Marriage)
Lit Hub: Kelly McMasters on Starting a Bookstore to Save Her Marriage
Romper: A Family’s First Home After Divorce Has Special Meaning
Book Reporter review: “McMasters’s writing shares some of its DNA with the work of Leslie Jamison and Rebecca Solnit…”
BookPage review: “With poetry and profundity, McMasters reflects on her path from optimistic wife and mother-to-be to reluctant yet relieved divorcee and single mom.”
PureWow: 13 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in May
Zibby Mag’s Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2023
Publishers Weekly: Family Ties: New Parenting Books