Bozeman author Molly Caro May will read from her critically acclaimed debut memoir, The Map of Enough: One Woman’s Search for Place, on Tuesday, June 10. Published by Counterpoint Press, May’s memoir explores notions of home from the point of view of a nomad who finds herself at a standstill:
“Molly Caro May grew up as part of a nomadic family, one proud of their international sensibilities, a tribe that never settled in one place for very long. Growing up moving from foreign country to foreign country, just like her father and grandfather, she became attached to her identity as a global woman from nowhere. But, on the verge of turning thirty years old, everything changed.
Molly and her fiancé Chris suddenly move to 107 acres in Montana, land her family owns but rarely visits, with the idea of staying for only a year. Surrounded by tall grass, deep woods, and the presence of predators, the young couple starts the challenging and often messy process of building a traditional Mongolian yurt from scratch. They finally finish just on the cusp of winter, in a below-zero degree snowstorm.”
The Map of Enough has been praised by many reviewers, including memoirist and poet Joe Wilkins who calls it “the record of a life deeply lived, of a woman tuning herself to the earthly resonances of a severe and beautiful place. With moments so heart-breakingly rendered you’ll feel the mountain wind, she turns the old ideas of what it means to find home inside out. May has written the next great Montana memoir.”
May has worked as a teacher, artist’s model, apple and cherry picker, lab assistant to a clinical herbalist, barista in a seaside town, opera caterer, field assistant to a frog biologist, conservation program developer, mentor to at-risk teenagers, vegetable farmer, and in the editorial department of a New York based publisher. Her writing has appeared in Orion Magazine, Salon, and Fourth Genre, among others, but this is her first book.
The reading is free and open to the public, and will take place at 7 p.m. in Elk River Books’ new store, 120 N. Main St., and will be followed by a signing and reception.
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