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In Between Places
In her late twenties, writer and naturalist Lucy Bryan found herself in between places. Her marriage to her first love had crumbled. Her beloved father had died of cancer. Doubt had supplanted the faith that had guided her since childhood. Uprooted and adrift, she turned to the natural world in search of meaning, connection, and a renewed sense of self.
In this collection of essays, Bryan traverses familiar and far-flung wildernesses, from the soaring cliffs of Yosemite National Park to the bomb-pocked heath barrens of West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness to hidden ravines that shelter ancient ecosystems in the Florida panhandle. She also invites readers on a contemplative journey. Landscape, ecology, and human and natural history illuminate the questions that emerge as she heals, falls in love again, and welcomes her first child: Why isn't our species better at letting go? Why (re)marry, when the institution of marriage fails so many? Why bring a child into this world, knowing destruction will be its inheritance?
Part travelogue, part memoir, these essays pair lyrical and intimate depictions of place with meditations on grief, acceptance, change, empowerment, and belonging.
In this collection of essays, Bryan traverses familiar and far-flung wildernesses, from the soaring cliffs of Yosemite National Park to the bomb-pocked heath barrens of West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness to hidden ravines that shelter ancient ecosystems in the Florida panhandle. She also invites readers on a contemplative journey. Landscape, ecology, and human and natural history illuminate the questions that emerge as she heals, falls in love again, and welcomes her first child: Why isn't our species better at letting go? Why (re)marry, when the institution of marriage fails so many? Why bring a child into this world, knowing destruction will be its inheritance?
Part travelogue, part memoir, these essays pair lyrical and intimate depictions of place with meditations on grief, acceptance, change, empowerment, and belonging.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
150 pages, Paperback
Published June 21, 2022
3 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 26, 2022
Lucy is a friend and a writer I admire. I was happy to learn about "In Between Places," her memoir in essays, and was eager to read it. It did not disappoint. This collection flows, from page to page and essay to essay, providing wonderful takes on the natural world and personal matters including love, marriage, grief and death.
These essays include a lot of detail, and they always are there in service of the story. In “Melt,” for example, I underlined “a bag of frost-bitten blueberries that never turned into a pie” and, later, “the plot we measured for a garden we never planted.” They are perfect details to illustrate the pain, loss and frustration Lucy was experiencing when her first marriage dissolved.
There are many detailed descriptions of the natural world: the trails hiked, the peaks seen, the flowers and trees encountered. These set the scene, so they have a formal narrative purpose. But they also --- collectively, more subtly --- assure readers that they are in good hands, that their narrator is someone who pays attention, sees things, conveys them in a meaningful way. This attentiveness also applies to Lucy's observations about people, including herself.
There are many wonderful images and mentions of the people who trod the land before Lucy and her companions did. And, in “Trail Time,” the previous traveler is Lucy herself, younger and newly married to her first husband.
These mentions reinforce the notion that the land was there before we arrived and will be there long after we leave. By supplying this context, putting the reader in this frame of mind, Lucy helps us recognize and appreciate the power of time. There are the obvious changes (the once palatial Carnegie estate reduced to “crumbling brick” and “hollow portals.”) But she encourages us to be even more observant, to notice more subtle changes in the land --- and in ourselves. We are, all of us, changing, even if it’s just a few millimeters a year, like the Sierra, as mentioned at the end of “Trail Time.”
There are many memorable writing touches, like this one from “Trail Time”: “The mountains exhale, banishing the afternoon heat. Where it can still reach, the low-slung sun paints the granite gold.”
This book will appeal to nature lovers, to spiritual people, to young parents, to anyone who has had a personal setback and tried to come back stronger (in other words, just about everyone.)
These essays include a lot of detail, and they always are there in service of the story. In “Melt,” for example, I underlined “a bag of frost-bitten blueberries that never turned into a pie” and, later, “the plot we measured for a garden we never planted.” They are perfect details to illustrate the pain, loss and frustration Lucy was experiencing when her first marriage dissolved.
There are many detailed descriptions of the natural world: the trails hiked, the peaks seen, the flowers and trees encountered. These set the scene, so they have a formal narrative purpose. But they also --- collectively, more subtly --- assure readers that they are in good hands, that their narrator is someone who pays attention, sees things, conveys them in a meaningful way. This attentiveness also applies to Lucy's observations about people, including herself.
There are many wonderful images and mentions of the people who trod the land before Lucy and her companions did. And, in “Trail Time,” the previous traveler is Lucy herself, younger and newly married to her first husband.
These mentions reinforce the notion that the land was there before we arrived and will be there long after we leave. By supplying this context, putting the reader in this frame of mind, Lucy helps us recognize and appreciate the power of time. There are the obvious changes (the once palatial Carnegie estate reduced to “crumbling brick” and “hollow portals.”) But she encourages us to be even more observant, to notice more subtle changes in the land --- and in ourselves. We are, all of us, changing, even if it’s just a few millimeters a year, like the Sierra, as mentioned at the end of “Trail Time.”
There are many memorable writing touches, like this one from “Trail Time”: “The mountains exhale, banishing the afternoon heat. Where it can still reach, the low-slung sun paints the granite gold.”
This book will appeal to nature lovers, to spiritual people, to young parents, to anyone who has had a personal setback and tried to come back stronger (in other words, just about everyone.)
April 8, 2022
IN BETWEEN PLACES is a lyric wandering inside the wilderness of the soul. Both researched and reflective, these essays chart divorce, death, marriage, and birth all within the wonder of the natural world. Lucy Bryan has written a soulful, searching book that confronts important questions with intelligence and grace.
July 12, 2022
I really love this book. I'm a fan of hiking memoirs and this one didn't disappoint. There's just something about writers who walk and walkers who write, isn't there? The two go together so well.
This is a memoir about being lost (sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally) and about things falling apart. It's about how taking a walk in the wilderness can sometimes help put us back together. It's about living deliberately and not being afraid to ask difficult questions. It's about finding "your place in the family of things" (to quote a line from Mary Oliver). It's about death and divorce and a crisis of faith and blisters and exhaustion, but it's also about waterfalls and mountain summits and rhododendron thickets and wildflowers and aspen groves and rain in the night and warm sleeping bags and wild mushrooms cooked in butter and moths at the window, their wings beating back the dark.
There are beautiful sentences that you will underline and books mentioned that you will want to look up. There are passages that you will quote in your own essays and images that will inspire your poetry. After each section, you will be torn between reading more or going for a walk out among the trees.
Each essay stands alone but together they provide, if not a map to a fixed destination, then a compass for the journey. If you take this book to heart, at some future time, when you inevitably find yourself in one of those in between places, you will remember that you are not alone. You will stand still and revel in the "weight and wonder of it all." And you will realize that you aren't lost, that you are actually a little closer to home.
This is a memoir about being lost (sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally) and about things falling apart. It's about how taking a walk in the wilderness can sometimes help put us back together. It's about living deliberately and not being afraid to ask difficult questions. It's about finding "your place in the family of things" (to quote a line from Mary Oliver). It's about death and divorce and a crisis of faith and blisters and exhaustion, but it's also about waterfalls and mountain summits and rhododendron thickets and wildflowers and aspen groves and rain in the night and warm sleeping bags and wild mushrooms cooked in butter and moths at the window, their wings beating back the dark.
There are beautiful sentences that you will underline and books mentioned that you will want to look up. There are passages that you will quote in your own essays and images that will inspire your poetry. After each section, you will be torn between reading more or going for a walk out among the trees.
Each essay stands alone but together they provide, if not a map to a fixed destination, then a compass for the journey. If you take this book to heart, at some future time, when you inevitably find yourself in one of those in between places, you will remember that you are not alone. You will stand still and revel in the "weight and wonder of it all." And you will realize that you aren't lost, that you are actually a little closer to home.
July 21, 2022
This is a book that reached into me and turned me inside out. The vulnerability in the stories are relatable but usually pieces of us that we bury. Lucy Bryan is able to bring it all to the surface and air it out.
This book made me crave the earth in a profound and primordial way. Thank you for bringing me back.
This book made me crave the earth in a profound and primordial way. Thank you for bringing me back.
July 4, 2022
Essays reflect the deep and beautiful mind of the author as she navigates challenges and opportunities along her early adult life. Beautiful, honest prose. Vivid imagery of natural beauty. A lovely little read to warm the heart and mind. Proud to also call her a friend.
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June 29, 2022My cousin wrote a series of essays compiled into this fantastic book! I’m so proud of her!
March 1, 2022
⭐️⭐️⭐️New⭐️⭐️⭐️
"In Between Places: A Memoir In Essays" by Lucy Bryan
Coming up in June the 21st, PRE-ORDER NOW!
In her late twenties, writer and naturalist Lucy Bryan found herself in between places. Her marriage to her first love had crumbled. Her beloved father had died of cancer. Doubt had supplanted the faith that had guided her since childhood. Uprooted and adrift, she turned to the natural world in search of meaning, connection, and a renewed sense of self.
In this collection of essays, Bryan traverses familiar and far-flung wildernesses, from the soaring cliffs of Yosemite National Park to the bomb-pocked heath barrens of West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness to hidden ravines that shelter ancient ecosystems in the Florida panhandle. She also invites readers on a contemplative journey. Landscape, ecology, and human and natural history illuminate the questions that emerge as she heals, falls in love again, and welcomes her first child: Why isn't our species better at letting go? Why (re)marry, when the institution of marriage fails so many? Why bring a child into this world, knowing destruction will be its inheritance?
Part travelogue, part memoir, these essays pair lyrical and intimate depictions of place with meditations on grief, acceptance, change, empowerment, and belonging.
"In Between Places: A Memoir In Essays" by Lucy Bryan
Coming up in June the 21st, PRE-ORDER NOW!
In her late twenties, writer and naturalist Lucy Bryan found herself in between places. Her marriage to her first love had crumbled. Her beloved father had died of cancer. Doubt had supplanted the faith that had guided her since childhood. Uprooted and adrift, she turned to the natural world in search of meaning, connection, and a renewed sense of self.
In this collection of essays, Bryan traverses familiar and far-flung wildernesses, from the soaring cliffs of Yosemite National Park to the bomb-pocked heath barrens of West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness to hidden ravines that shelter ancient ecosystems in the Florida panhandle. She also invites readers on a contemplative journey. Landscape, ecology, and human and natural history illuminate the questions that emerge as she heals, falls in love again, and welcomes her first child: Why isn't our species better at letting go? Why (re)marry, when the institution of marriage fails so many? Why bring a child into this world, knowing destruction will be its inheritance?
Part travelogue, part memoir, these essays pair lyrical and intimate depictions of place with meditations on grief, acceptance, change, empowerment, and belonging.
July 2, 2023
Picked this up at The Wooly Pig Brewery on Father’s Day as an impulse buy. It turned out to be an exploration of marriage, relationships, family and nature. It was an interesting read. Hard to categorize. A series of linked personal essays that seek to tie biography to nature and the larger lessons of life.
December 13, 2025
what an incredible essay collection about being a human being, and all the trials and tribulations and triumphs that come with it. i'm so extremely grateful to have worked with lucy bryan for the past semester as her student.
March 21, 2025
Discovered this book as I saw that a dear friend now deceased loved it. So did I.
September 23, 2024
Lucy is an old childhood friend of mine, and I'm glad to still consider her a friend though we have not lived in the same place in decades, only touching base from time to time every few years or so. I've been impressed with her essays ever since I first read "On Naming Women and Mountains" many years ago. I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this book last month. It is a cohesive and beautiful collection of reflections on love, relationships, nature, and identity. Highly recommend!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews