Exit Wounds

""Exit Wounds is riveting, heart-rending and borderless in its brilliance and sympathy. What a book.""--Joseph O'Neill, author of Godwin ""EXIT WOUNDS is an apt metaphor for the leavings and losses in Peter Godwin's unforgettable new memoir. Here dislocation and exile are both geographical and personal: Where does a ""cultural centaur"" belong? Where is home when a marriage ends? What is home? I was so enchanted by Godwin's prose, his insights, his deft use of imagery, and the conversations between mother and son, husband and wife, brother and sister--some heartbreaking, some funny, some walking that tightrope between--that I didn't want this brilliant book to end. Exit Wounds, indeed.""--Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful ""EXIT WOUNDS is, quite simply, a masterpiece. Peter Godwin spins literary gold out of shards of heartbreak and humor. To see the world through Godwin's eyes is to go on a journey of exploration and experience everything old as new again and all that is new as the oldest of human stories.""--Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War ""A rich, shattering memoir of an extraordinary family. Lifted up by rueful humor, easy erudition, painful honesty, and deep affection, Peter Godwin's story swings between Zimbabwe and New York, with time in London, where his formidable mother is dying. EXIT WOUNDS is a harrowing, gorgeous account, ultimately, of his own long search for home.""--William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days ""Finely wrought, contemplative, intimate, lyrical and searingly emotionally honest, Exit Wounds is a story of war and love and of tragedy. In a life that has been marked by loss: of a birthright, a nation, of family and finally of his marriage, Peter Godwin traverses the wilderness of grief towards redemption. Exit Wounds will leave you breathless and imprint itself indelibly upon your heart.""--Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness ""Magnificent and moving.""--Tan Twan Eng, author of The House of Doors ""This is one of my favorite books of the last decade. It's so funny, so elegant, so erudite, and as a portrait of an extraordinary mother and the family she made, it is poignant, masterful, and unforgettable.""--Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King ""This profound and moving memoir is an essential addition to Peter Godwin's brilliant oeuvre: he explores how we carry our imaginary homelands through loss and upheaval, how we make and remake our vulnerable selves. I loved this book.""--Claire Messud, New York Times bestselling author of The Burning Girl ""Compulsively readable as well as deeply moving""--Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad