Unfinished Woman: A Memoir

by Robyn Davidson

Overview

"Searching, captivating and miraculously honest. Davidson has a voice we want to travel with, and to know."—Lisa Brennan-Jobs, New York Times bestselling author of Small Fry

A spellbinding memoir exploring time and memory, home and belonging, from the internationally bestselling author of Tracks, “an unforgettably powerful book” (Cheryl Strayed).

In 1977, while she was in her twenties, Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea.

A life of almost constant travelling followed—from the Outback to Sydney’s underworld; from sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in India and Tibet, to marrying an Indian prince. The only territory she avoided was the past. In Unfinished Woman, she ventures into that unknown, unearthing an ache for a lost but barely remembered mother and an unmet desire to feel at home in her freedom.

Adventurous but guarded, fearless yet broken, Davidson asks: how can we live with pain and uncertainty, to find beauty in the strangeness of being? Unfinished Woman is a stunning literary achievement, inviting readers in as a world-famous wandering spirit is, for the first time, laid truly bare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620401620
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	630,247
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robyn Davidson is the author of several books, including Travelling Light, Desert Places, and the international bestseller Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback. Born on a cattle property in Queensland, Australia, she has traveled extensively, living in Sydney, Brisbane, London, New York, and India, where she migrated with and wrote about nomads. She is now based in Melbourne but spends several months a year in the Indian Himalayas.

Editorial Reviews

10/02/2023

Australian travel writer Davidson (Tracks) excavates her childhood, romantic life, and family traumas in this raw and thorny memoir. She begins with a recollection of her mother’s 1961 suicide and the fight the two got into that day, before doubling back to interrogate the notion that the argument and the suicide were connected at all. “My mother is as close to me, and as hidden from me, as my own face,” Davidson concludes. In another passage, she describes her family’s shared jokes as granting them “the illusion of unity, belying the fact that behind each set of eyes were barricaded hordes of strangers. But then any human head is a bedlam, if you care to look.” This self-awareness underpins Davidson’s unsparing ruminations on her tense relationship with her older sister, the friction in her parents’ marriage, and her own interpersonal struggles, including a “catastrophic love affair” while she was living in London in her late 30s. Her rueful tone and assertion that her fate often felt like “the playing out of forces had no hand in” hit hard. It makes for painful yet cathartic reading. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Assoc. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Searching, captivating and miraculously honest. Davidson has a voice we want to travel with, and to know.” —Lisa Brennan-Jobs, author of SMALL FRY

“Immersive and profound, Robyn Davidson's Unfinished Woman is a portal to understanding a daughter's grief. 'We take our mothers into us; that is where they live,' she writes. So much of her mother's life may remain unknown, but through memoir, Davidson completes what she considers an impossible task: crafting a moving portrait of her mother. This book will stay with me.” —Jeannie Vanasco, author of THE GLASS EYE

“Stunning. Robyn Davidson lives and writes with an explorer's courage, but this book is more than an adventure story. Unfinished Woman is an unfiltered glimpse into the fierce pursuit of freedom and connection, woven with a mother-daughter bond untouchable by time” —Kendra Atleework, author of MIRACLE COUNTRY

“In this searching memoir, the best-selling Australian author reflects on her mother's suicide and opens up about dumpster diving to survive, coming to terms with frayed relationships and living with regret.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Complex . . . well-written and insightful.” —Kirkus Reviews

"In between life-changing adventures and ever since, the restless Davidson has been on the move, roaming from London to Australia to India to America and back, gathering experiences and relationships. The journey is inward this time, but no less arduous . . . What follows is an honest accounting, painfully so, as Davidson comes to terms with her mother's life and death and reaches a kind of reckoning with her own life . . . Davidson allows us to see inside — all of it, no matter how messy — and it's definitely worth a look." - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“[Davidson] excavates her childhood, romantic life, and family traumas in this raw and thorny memoir . . . Her rueful tone and assertion that her fate often felt like 'the playing out of forces [she] had no hand in' hits hard. It makes for painful yet cathartic reading.” —Publishers Weekly

"A memoir that stands both proudly and imperfectly (gloriously so) as a testament to human ingenuity, uncertainty and raw courage . . . To describe Davidson as complicated, mercurial, brilliant, exotic or any of those mixed blessings that percolate into an artistic temperament still would be missing the mark. She is definitely her own brand, one in which fierce vulnerability is the norm." - Bookreporter

"Like Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, [Robyn Davidson's] prose often zooms by, but the reader must pay careful attention to each word to keep up … Davidson’s insights into legacy, travel, and creativity are often quietly profound . . . Unfinished Woman is a valuable study in the art of memoir. It reveals a messy truth of humanity — that the places we’re in and the people we’re with strongly influence who we are. It then reveals an even messier truth: No matter where we go, there we are." - Washington Independent Review of Books

“Beautiful, thrilling and ferociously brave, Robyn Davidson's timeless story of her astonishing journey gripped me from the first page to the last. An unforgettably powerful book.” —Cheryl Strayed on TRACKS

“A strong, salty fresh book by an original and individual young woman ... This will rank among the best of the books of exploration and travel and, like them, is a record of self-discovery and self-proving.” —Doris Lessing on TRACKS

From the Publisher

2023-09-05
A bestselling Australian author explores the impact of her mother’s suicide.

In 1977, Davidson, then in her late 20s, made a 1,700-mile journey across the Australian desert (detailed in her memoir, Tracks), accompanied by only her dog and camels to carry her gear. In her latest book, she focuses on family. For years, she struggled to write about her mother, who died by suicide when Davidson was 11. Following her death, Davidson’s father was left to raise her and her sister alone. The author shares childhood memories of her parents and the dynamics of family life, including mockery and anger from her sister. Uncertain about whether jealousy over being displaced in maternal affection was the cause of her sister’s hostility, the author writes, “Either way, one must never forget the crucial importance of point of view.” At age 18, Davidson hitched a ride to Sydney, where she slept in parks and searched rubbish bins for food and other necessities. Over time, she and her father would become “dearest of friends,” but at the time, they were also “strangers to each other.” The author continued her nomadic life, living in more than 50 houses since childhood, taking on odd jobs, and meeting individuals with varying idiosyncrasies, as she attempted to come to terms with her “own strangeness in the midst of strangers.” Eventually, she met Narendra, her companion for more than 20 years. In reflection, Davidson writes, “I wish I could write about that ancestral self as if there were clear continuity between us, but I can hardly believe we are the same person. I cannot enter her mind as it was, but as I imagine it now, from this far-distant perspective.” In this complex yet disconnected memoir, Davidson often remains detached from the events she describes.

Well-written and insightful but curiously lacking in emotion.

Kirkus Reviews