When Jane Green turned 55, she stopped pretending.
From the outside, she looked to have a perfect life: bestselling novels, a beautiful home, a lovely family. But inside, she felt herself disappearing as she struggled to squeeze herself into socially acceptable shapes and watched her dreams gather dust.
Even in 21st-century America, she knew she wasn’t supposed to put herself first; women who did were branded as selfish, overly ambitious or simply crazy.
Nonetheless, that’s precisely — and unapologetically — what Jane did after concluding that she couldn’t attain the freedom she craved through any sort of conventional reinvention. Rather, she needed to tap into the loud and messy art student she’d once been and build a home, not for others, but for herself.
Her new book. Rewilding, part memoir, part battle cry, is the exhilarating tale of how she came to that conclusion and how she let go of the familiar for the back streets of Marrakech.
Jane joins us to discuss the liberation as well as the pain and anxiety of rewilding.
Sponsored by The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Authors’ Series, honoring Theodore and Caroline Newhouse and Susan Newhouse