How to Leave

An uproarious memoir and guide to leaving the big city
So you escaped whatever humdrum little town you grew up in and moved to The Big City. Maybe it was New York. Maybe it was Seattle or Kansas City. Wherever it was, there was amazing stuff everywhere you turned: Ethiopian food! A movie theater that played documentaries! A hairstylist who knew what to do with frizz! You overlooked the crime rates (edgy!), the proximity of your kitchen to your bed (convenient!), and the fact that you had to take public transportation to see nature, then had to share it with millions of other cranky, naked mole-rat apartment dwellers (urban!).
But then you got a job offer you couldn't refuse. Or you developed asthma. Or you got pregnant. Or you got pregnant for the second time and you couldn't use your closet as a bedroom for two babies. And you decided you had to leave.
When Frank Sinatra and Alicia Keys said that if you could make it in New York, you could make it anywhere, they probably weren't talking about the middle of nowhere or whatever suburb you used to make fun of. Because "making it" is really hard to do without world-class museums and gourmet food trucks. Erin Clune regales readers with priceless stories of her own experiences leaving New York for her hometown in Wisconsin, and provides a jocular but useful guide--for anyone leaving, or thinking about leaving, their own personal mecca--to finding contentment while staying true to yourself in a place far, far away from The City.

Erin Clune is a journalist and comedic writer whose work is regularly featured on NPR's All Things Considered, PRI's To the Best of Our Knowledge, and in Medium, The Rumpus, and many other media outlets where information meets funny. She is also the co-author (along with Today show producers Alicia Ybarbo and Mary Ann Zoellner) of Sh*tty Mom for All Seasons. Clune lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with two kids, two cats, one husband, one guinea pig, and zero doormen.