In All Over the Map, the bestselling author of An Italian Affair buys us the plane tickets and takes us in search of adventure and romance as she wonders whether it’s possible, in midlife, to have it all.
Laura loves being a writer who travels all over the map. She can pick up and go whenever she wants, jumping on a plane to escape a romance gone bad or to taste the world’s best guacamole.
When the sexy Parisian professor who helped Laura get over her divorce tells her that he has a new girlfriend, Laura wonders whether her passion for travel is interfering with what most women seem to want at her age: a husband, a family, and a safe, settled life. She’s further shaken by a trip to the South Pacific that goes very wrong, and for a while she becomes a travel writer afraid to travel.
Searching for love and coping with her ordeal, Laura tangos in Buenos Aires, seeks wisdom from an Amazonian shaman, heads off into the wilderness on Outward Bound, goes on a ten-day meditation retreat, interviews sex-trafficked women in Italy, and reports on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda. When she’s dumped on her forty-fifth birthday, she’s oddly relieved, and realizes she isn’t going to wait for a man anymore. She decides that although she doesn’t have the life she anticipated, she’ll create the life she wants. Laura experiences the extremes of adventure and emotion that women of all ages will relate to — and she comes out satisfied and happy on the other side.
Praise for All Over The Map
“All Over The Map makes you want to pack your bags, explore the world, mend your broken heart, and totally reclaim your life.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed
“Brave, honest, and compulsively readable. I truly laughed and cried.”
— Mary Roach, author of Stiff, Spook, and Bonk
“A winning coming-of-middle-age memoir.”
— Booklist
“In this touching memoir, Fraser offers a glimpse into her life as a busy writer, taking readers to Mexico, Peru, Argentina, France, Italy, Rwanda and other locales. She writes beautifully about learning what she wants in life, what satisfies her, how to deal with her failed relationships and where to go when you just need to get away.”
— All You
“Entertaining… should resonate with women striving to have it all.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Blogs, reviews, etc.:
Nice review in the Feminist Review.
Interview with Cathy Alter in Smith magazine.
National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month.
O Magazine reading group guide.
Nice interview with Meghan Ward in her writerland blog.