The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country

From the acclaimed author of the ＂wonderfully funny and openhearted＂ (NPR) Drinking with Men comes a poignant, wrenching, and ultimately hopeful book--equal parts memoir and social history--that follows the author, after a series of tragic losses, to Northern Ireland, where she finds a path toward healing.

Rosie Schaap had a solid career as a journalist and a life that looked to others like nonstop fun: all drinking and dining and traveling to beautiful places--and getting paid to write about it. But under the surface she was reeling from the loss of her husband and her mother--who died just one year apart. Caring for them had claimed much of her daily life in her late thirties. Mourning them would take longer.

It wasn’t until a reporting trip took her to the Northern Irish countryside that Rosie found a partner to heal with: Glenarm, a quiet, seaside village in County Antrim. That first visit made such an impression she returned to make a life. This unlikely place--in a small, tough country mainly associated with sectarian strife--gave her a measure of peace that had seemed impossible elsewhere.

Weaving personal narrative and social history, The Slow Road North is a moving and wise look at how a community can offer the key to healing. It’s a portrait of a complicated place at a pivotal time--through Brexit, a historic school integration, and a pandemic--and a love letter to a village, a culture, and a country.

ROSIE SCHAAP is the author of Becoming a Sommelier and Drinking with Men, which was named a best book of the year by Library Journal and NPR. She was a columnist for the New York Times Magazine and has also contributed to Lucky Peach, Saveur, This American Life, and elsewhere.