Running Away to Home
Our Family's Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Really Matters
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A middle class, Midwestern family in search of meaning uproot themselves and move to their ancestral village in Croatia.
"We can look at this in two ways," Jim wrote, always the pragmatist. "We can panic and scrap the whole idea. Or we can take this as a sign. They're saying the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe this is the kick in the pants we needed to do something completely different. There will always be an excuse not to go…"
And that, friends, is how a typically sane middle-aged mother decided to drag her family back to a forlorn mountain village in the backwoods of Croatia.
So begins author Jennifer Wilson's journey in Running Away to Home. Jen, her architect husband, Jim, and their two children had been living the typical soccer- and ballet-practice life in the most Middle American of places: Des Moines, Iowa. They overindulged themselves and their kids, and as a family they were losing one another in the rush of work, school, and activities. One day, Jen and her husband looked at each other–both holding their Starbucks coffee as they headed out to their SUV in the mall parking lot, while the kids complained about the inferiority of the toys they just got–and asked themselves: "Is this the American dream? Because if it is, it sort of sucks."
Jim and Jen had always dreamed of taking a family sabbatical in another country, so when they lost half their savings in the stock-market crash, it seemed like just a crazy enough time to do it. High on wanderlust, they left the troubled landscape of contemporary America for the Croatian mountain village of Mrkopalj, the land of Jennifer's ancestors. It was a village that seemed hermetically sealed for the last one hundred years, with a population of eight hundred (mostly drunken) residents and a herd of sheep milling around the post office. For several months they lived like locals, from milking the neighbor's cows to eating roasted pig on a spit to desperately seeking the village recipe for bootleg liquor. As the Wilson-Hoff family struggled to stay sane (and warm), what they found was much deeper and bigger than themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After the 2008 crash wiped out half of her family's investments, 30-something freelance writer Wilson finally decided to do something about her growing dissatisfaction with her overscheduled, materialistic Starbucks existence. In her funny and heartfelt memoir, she packs up her husband and two young children from Des Moines, Iowa, with the plan to live a simpler, more connected life in the ancestral home in Croatia and to learn about her immigrant story. A century after her maternal great-grandparents left, Wilson and her family arrive in Mrkopalj (MER-koe-pie), near the Adriatic Sea. It's home to 800 people, many of whom only speak an ancient dialect of Croatian, and who have a short list of things they love: liqueur, sausage, family, God, and the abundant surrounding nature. Wilson's husband and children adapt quickly, but Wilson, the very relatable supermom, can't easily turn off that switch and just enjoy getting reacquainted with her family. Despite the language and cultural barriers, the locals prove invaluable and embrace the quartet, acting as translators, guides, and historians, helping her find the old house, locating nearby living relatives, and teaching the author her first Croatian recipes, giving Wilson the roots she came seeking.
Customer Reviews
Running Away to Home
Wonderful book! Well written and provided so much wonderful history of Croatia and it's people.
Beautifully Written!
This book captured my attention from beginning to end. I'm so glad I stumbled upon it just in time for a transatlantic flight from Boston to Berlin. Didn't want to put the book down and, more or less, didn't until it was done (sadly). If only there was a sequel! This book has pushed me to dig further into my own ancestral routes, which has now become a passion. THANK YOU!