What seduced publishing trailblazer Hilary McPhee to an exotic writing project in Jordan? Curiosity, political engagement, mad bravery? A story with all the exhilaration of exile then banishment in other people's houses - an attic in London, apartments in Italy and Amman - where she watches other women managing magnificently to live alone. A failed marriage, then a stymied book were a double hit that risk-taking McPhee could only face by fleeing into the world. Then, hardest of all was her return to Australia to face the music, pick up the pieces, and find her strength in starting over again. McPhee's brutally honest memoir traverses wild terrain.