Dimensions
129 x 198 x 22mm
For fans of Lorna Sage and Paula Fox, a unique memoir from Irma Kurtz, the acclaimed author of 'The Great American Bus Ride' and internationally renowned agony aunt.
In 1954 seventeen-year-old Irma Kurtz left her New Jersey home to travel alone through Europe, intent on transforming herself and changing the world. She travelled through England, Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France, finding love, beauty and some horror as a Jew seeing for herself the places her family had once called home.
Last year, sifting through a cardboard box filled with memories in her mother's house, she rediscovered the journal of her first journey. Gripped by intense recollections of sailing across the Atlantic, and intrigued by the exuberant remarks of her precocious younger self, she decided to leave here London home and retrace her footsteps, this time with herself as a guide.
Kurtz vividly captures the cities of love and romance with the wit and compassion that have won her so many fans. Testing her theory that older women are invisible, her journey is peppered with acute observations of human behaviour, not to mention some sharp advice for her travel companion, a teenager who thinks she knows it all, yet has no clue what lies ahead of her.
The dialogue between the two women offers an insight into what has endured, and what has been lost, in the altered environment of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium. Beautifully written, moving and funny, this unique memoir not only shows how our world has changed, but reveals the pains and pleasures of growing older and wiser.
