Memory Maps

"I am a wanderer: one with a hoarder's love of houses and things . . . I am tracing here a memory map of all the places that have stayed with me and, since this is also a map of all the voyages of discovery, this is also the story of the getting to those places."

In 'Memory Map', probably her most personal book, Lisa St Aubin de Teran charts a life spent in all corners of the world, from Wimbledon to the Venezuelan Andes, from the Caribbean to Ghana, and confesses to wanderlust and fate as being her chief guides. An itinerant lifestyle creates an unpredictable personal life, though, and Lisa writes movingly about being the support for three children by three different husbands and also, of the pain of failing to be strong.