Try to Get Lost

Joan Frank is the award-winning author of a number of books of literary fiction and essays including Because You Have To: A Writing Life and All the News I Need: A Novel. She lives with her husband, playwright Bob Duxbury, in the North Bay Area of California.

Try to Get Lost is a bold, engaging disquisition on the perils and promises of travel: both cranky and wise, worldly and cultivated, humorous and rueful, its every sentence sparkles. All in all, it is thoroughly entertaining, a sophisticated pleasure." - Phillip Lopate, author of A Mother's Tale"Joan Frank animates her loving and irreverent essays with a vital, unspoken question: How do the human tendencies to idealize, project, rank, divide, and dismiss get in the way of reading the world with accuracy, with complexity? Try to Get Lost is an ongoing act of awe that gives itself permission to roll its eyes now and then. It's necessary. It's brilliant." - Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship"Filled with wit, soul, and insight, each of the essays in this radiant collection offers not only a layered and revelatory portrait of the places that enchant and haunt Frank - from Paris to Florence to her hometown of Phoenix with its many ghosts - but also a profound meditation on the possibility of discovery, the inevitability of loss, and the power of both to unmake and remake us." - Jessie Chaffee, author of Florence in Ecstasy: A Novel“Philosophical, sophisticated literary forays that are a pleasure to dwell in.”—Kirkus, starred review“Frank’s rich, imagery-driven prose lends immediacy to her observations. This is a perfect book for readers to take on their travels, even if they’re only going as far as the armchair.”—Publishers Weekly