Synopsis:
Told in a nonlinear format, Leaving and Everything After (67,100 words) is a travel memoir that blends narrative nonfiction on how a family death causes a 31-year-old woman to confront losses that are still alive. Comparison titles include: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Colm Tóibín’s Long Island, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories.
A video producer in New York, Tiffany, becomes motherless overnight at the age of 29. Two years later, she leaves America to return to her birth country, China, for a gap year to travel and live close to her father. While there, the two unconsciously mourn for the loss of each other.
Through her travels in Cambodia and the Flores Sea in Indonesia, she learns about an autogenocide that wiped out 21-30 percent of a country’s population, and faces her fear of the ocean by snorkeling close to manta rays. As her budget diminishes, she schedules to return to New York in less than three months. She then stumbles upon Bhutan and is drawn to its charm. Unsure if she should pursue the place, the tourists she meets in New Zealand help her decide. This travel memoir closes in on how not every ending is definitive, and that one way to confront losses is to live.
I am seeking literary representation.
Email me at tiffanyyunedits at gmail dot com for the full manuscript or the first three chapters, etc