Homesick Nomad: Settling into an Untethered Life

In this memoir, peripatetic wilderness enthusiast Madia debates putting down roots after getting divorced and subsequently falling in love with a new man. As recounted in her 2024 memoir, Never Leave the Dogs Behind, the “van life” adherent had found happiness while living in the desert south of Moab, UT, with only her pet dogs and pythons for company. She spends idyllic days on the banks of a small river and restores her troubled 1982 orange van, nicknamed Bertha. But when Madia falls in love with photographer William, who lives a suburban life in the Pacific Northwest, she begins to question her fiercely independent way of being. She goes on to explore her child-free life, the idea of motherhood, the effects of online harassment, the comforts of home, and whether one can be independent and committed to another person, all leading up to the question of whether she can compromise without giving up her liberation.