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    The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
    The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
    The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down

    Written by Andrew McCarthy

    Narrated by Andrew McCarthy

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Unable to commit to his fiancée of nearly four years—and with no clear understanding of what’s holding him back—Andrew McCarthy finds himself at a crossroads, plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. Something in his character has kept him always at a distance, preventing him from giving himself wholeheartedly to the woman he loves and from becoming the father that he knows his children deserve. So before he loses everything he cares about, Andrew sets out to look for answers.

    Hobbling up the treacherous slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, dodging gregarious passengers aboard an Amazonian riverboat, and trudging through dense Costa Rican rain forests—Andrew takes us on exotic trips to some of the world’s most beautiful places, but his real journey is one of the spirit.

    On his soul-searching voyages, Andrew traces the path from his New Jersey roots, where acting saved his life—and early fame almost took it away—to his transformation into a leading travel writer. He faces the real costs of his early success and lays bare the evolving nature of his relationships with women. He explores a strained bond with his father, and how this complex dynamic shapes his own identity as a parent. Andrew charts his journey from ambivalence to confidence, from infidelity and recklessness to acceptance and a deeper understanding of the internal conflicts of his life.

    A gifted writer with an unsparing eye, Andrew relishes bizarre encounters with the characters whom he encounters, allowing them to challenge him in unexpected ways. He gets into peculiar, even dangerous situations that put him to the test—with mixed results. Disarmingly likable, Andrew is open, honest, and authentic, and what emerges is an intimate memoir of self-discovery and an unforgettable love song to the woman who would be his wife.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781469248400
    Author

    Andrew McCarthy

    Since starring in movies like Pretty in Pink, St Elmo’s Fire and Less Than Zero, ANDREW McCARTHY has become a director, an award-winning travel writer and a bestselling author. He has directed more than eighty hours of television, including Orange Is the New Black, The Blacklist, Gossip Girl and many others. For a dozen years he served as editor at large at National Geographic Traveler and his award-winning travel writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic and TIME. He is the author of a travel memoir, The Longest Way Home, and a young-adult novel, Just Fly Away, both New York Times bestsellers.

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    Reviews for The Longest Way Home

    4/5

    19 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I like to travel, but wouldn’t say I have a strong sense of adventure--there are many places I have no desire to visit and activities I don’t personally wish to do. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still curious, and for that reason, travel writing appeals to me. Since most of my travels these days involve a forty-mile stretch comprised of the four Los Angeles freeways between my home and workplace, audiobooks are a great way to pretend I’m somewhere else. I recently spent a week in several locales, some exotic--Patagonia, the Amazon, Costa Rica, Mount Kilimanjaro--and some less so--New York, Baltimore, Vienna, Dublin--with Andrew McCarthy as my tour guide. Our travels also took me deep into McCarthy’s psyche as he inched toward that “triumph of hope over experience” event: marrying for the second time.If the author’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because he’s “THAT Andrew McCarthy”--yeah, the one from the 80s (Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire, etc.). He still acts, and sometimes he directs, but he’s also developed a career as an award-winning travel writer and editor-at-large for National Geographic Traveler magazine, where several of the pieces in his first book, The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down, originated. In many respects, McCarthy was already pretty “settled down.” He had two children and had been with his daughter’s mother for seven years; they’d been engaged for four of them. But when they finally began talking about wedding plans, he grew anxious and conflicted. He needed to figure out why--he hoped it wasn’t stereotypical male commitment-phobia--and as much as he loved his family, he needed to go off on his own to work through it.It wasn’t long before the reason for McCarthy’s preference for solo travel seemed pretty clear to me: despite the fact that he’s made a living as an actor, a profession that seems to require extraversion, the guy’s a fellow introvert. While the book’s subtitle suggests he was searching for “the courage to settle down,” I think he was also seeking how to balance being a fully-invested partner and parent with preserving his core self--not an unusual challenge for anyone in a committed relationship, really. I never actually questioned McCarthy’s commitment to his fiancée or his children, and I'm not sure truly he did either. I think the struggle was more about intimacy and boundaries, combined with the concern of the once-divorced person not to end up a twice-divorced person. I was pretty sympathetic.The book itself seems to reflect some of those intimacy-and-boundaries struggles. It’s not a fully-encompassing autobiography; McCarthy’s pretty sparing with backstory, and will definitely not satisfy your curiosity about his 1980s Brat Pack heyday. He’s remarkably introspective and intimate with the reader in some places while keeping a distance in others, most notably in not referring to his children by name and identifying his future wife--spoiler: he DOES find that courage--only as “D” throughout the book. That reserve keeps The Longest Way Home from fully satisfying as personal memoir, although I think it may connect better in audio format; I’m glad that’s how I read it. But the book also provides an introduction to McCarthy’s travel writing; I found that thoroughly engaging, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps collecting awards for his work in that field.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Andrew McCarthy is an actor I remember from my teenage years, a man who features on a few of my favourite movies. So when I saw that he had a travel book that was about him dealing with his issues around marriage I was intrigued, when I read it I was charmed.I do empathise with his feeling of being twitchy in crowds and lonely within groups, I know that feeling all too well myself. In this he explores being in foreign countries, actually working for the National Geographic Traveler, and recounting some of his adventures, alongside his relationship with his now-wife and then-fiancee, and with his own issues and through these travels he comes to terms with himself and with his relationships with the people closest to him. I enjoyed the read, loved the bits about dealing with his issues and with the wedding and D's dealings with him, which came across as very Irish without being twee.I would recommend it. Not quite five star but damn close

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Childhood/Teen crush of mine.
      He was open and honest about his foibles and if not harmful, isolating patterns, his upbringing, shortcomings and relationships.
      Interesting, nice ending.
    • 3/5
      Andrew McCarthy, actor, director and travel writer has written a memoir concentrating on his inability to come to terms with settling down and being married (a second time) and maybe being a more responsible man. Although, I did enjoy the eighties films he was in; it was the title of this book that really intrigued me. I wasn’t sure what I would find but enjoyed the stories of his travels around the globe describing in detail places I know I will never travel to. He touches a bit on his acting and his quick rise to fame; his drinking problem; his need for solitude and his dysfunctional relationship with his family. I felt as I was reading this book, it was a journal for the author to come to terms with not only becoming a husband (although they have been together for a long time) but also terms with his life of uncertainly. It shows that he is as human as the rest of us.
    • 3/5
      I initially was interested in this book because I love the Brat Pack, but I am also an avid traveler so I thought it would be a good read. I enjoyed his stories of travels to exotic places I could never imagine going to. However, I had a hard time relating to his perspective on marriage and was at times turned off my his selfishness.