Exit: the endings that set us free

In this book, the author, a sociologist examines the exits we make in our lives: exits big and small, extraordinary and ordinary, ritualized and unceremonious, quick and protracted, painful and liberating. Exits are braided into the arc of our individual development and laced into our intergenerational relationships, shaped by economic crisis, global mobility, and technological innovations. But even though exits are all around us, we tend to diminish them, often seeing them as signs of failure or retreat, treating them as negative spaces in our life journeys. The author traveled around the country, listening to people tell their stories of leaving, and produced the penetrating portraits that have become her signature: a gay man who finds home and wholeness after exiting the closet; a teen forced to leave Iran in the midst of civil war; a Catholic priest who leaves the church he has always been devoted to; and many more. She finds the universal patterns that reframe our exit narratives and give them the significance they are due, lending wisdom and perspective to the possibility of moving on with purposefulness, dignity, and grace.