The Art of Vanishing: A Memoir of Wanderlust

The powerful story of a young woman chafing at the confines of marriage and the high cost of craving freedom and adventure

At twenty-five, as her wedding date drew closer, Laura Smith began to feel trapped. Not by her fiancé, who shared her appetite for adventure, but by the unsettling idea that it was hard to be at once married and free.

Laura wanted her life to be different. She wanted her marriage to be different. And she found in the strangely captivating story of another restless young woman determined to live without constraints both an enticement and a challenge. Barbara Follett was a free-spirited trailblazer who walked out of her marriage in December 1939 and vanished without a trace. Laura became determined to find out what happened.

The Art of Vanishing is a riveting mystery and a piercing exploration of marriage and convention that asks deep and uncomfortable questions: Why do we give up on our childhood dreams? Is marriage a golden noose? Must we find ourselves in the same row houses telling our kids to behave? Searingly honest, it will challenge you to rethink your most intimate decisions and may just upend your life.