Meredith Stout

Out of My Shoes Meredith Stout

A multi-layered memoir of transformation, Out of My Shoes weaves together events from the life of the narrator who grew up during the 1940's and '50's in a sheltered Southern California environment. While attending Vassar College, Meredith marries an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy New York family. They move to Berkeley, where she becomes a traditional faculty wife and mother. Eventually, troubled by her life of privilege, she leaves her marriage to pursue her interests in photography, writing, and social activism. When she meets Jayda, a formerly homeless African-American woman poet, their complex relationship, with its racial and sensual tensions, is at the heart of this mid-life creative awakening. Issues of class and race are intertwined in compelling stories, both poignant and humorous, as the narrator struggles to find a new identity.