Home Is Always the Place You Just Left: A Memoir of Restless Longing and Persistent Grace

The author chronicles her lifelong quest for a meaningful faith, recounting the spiritual journey that began with her conservative evangelical upbringing, to the struggles and doubts of early adulthood, marriage, and motherhood, to an experience of grace that would bring healing and joy to the broken places in her life. Original.

Born in Hopewell, Virginia, to a family of Presbyterians, Betty Carter formed her early picture of God from her relationship with her parents: a well-known preacher and his devout, energetic wife. Faith came easily to her at first, but as her journey became more difficult and complex; she felt a growing sense of loss—a longing for the easy belief and emotional comfort of her evangelical Protestant childhood.

Ms. Smartt Carter graduated from Wheaton College in 1987. She's a writer, artist, and mother of two. Her first book, a novel, I Read it in the Wordless Book, was published in 1995. The Tower, the Mask, and the Grave, a mystery, was published two years later. She has spoken at Wheaton College, Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing, and Union University's Creative Writing Conference. Smartt Carter and her husband (an English teacher) live in Leeds, Alabama, where she continues to write novels, short stories, essays and book reviews. Home is Always the Place You Just Left is her memoir and her first nonfiction title.