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By RAY ROUTHIER, Staff Writer Sunday, April 15, 2007

Meredith Hall's first book is about a woman from a small New Hampshire town who becomes pregnant at 16, is shunned by her family, and gives up the baby for adoption.

She wanders through the Middle East for a while, returns to New England, and is finally reunited with her son 21 years later.

The book, "Without a Map," (Beacon Press $24.95) is Hall's memoir.

Hall, 58, lives in Pownal and teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire. She'll be appearing at several local bookstores in the coming weeks to discuss her work.

Q: What prompted you to write a memoir now?

A: I have dreamed about writing all my life. I went back to college after I was divorced when I was 40 years old. I was a student at Bowdoin College for four years and took degrees in English and in anthropology. I was hired to teach writing at UNH after I earned my Master of Arts there. I wrote in my head every minute of every day. But I was a busy mother, working full time at work I loved, and I still didn't find my way to writing. And then, about four years ago, I took a colleague's writing class so I could be around writers. I wrote two essays, and, astonishingly, one of them won the Pushcart Prize. I started wondering what was going on, what I was going to do about this thing that was feeling so good, so natural, like breathing finally.

That winter, I very audaciously applied for the Gift of Freedom from A Room of Her Own Foundation, a $50,000 grant. Astonishingly, again, I won it. On the first day of my leave from UNH, I sat down and thought, "You are a writer now. What are you going to write?" These stories were all lined up, ready to be written. One after the other, they poured onto the page.

It took just six months to write this book. It felt as if the stories had already been written somewhere, that I was a scribe - a very strange experience. I have learned that when I write, I drop down into a place I've come to call "the tunnel." I disconnect, disappear. I understand now why I couldn't write all those years when I was raising my children. It is a profoundly separate place, the tunnel. Once I made the decision to tell these hidden stories, they just came. I think that we are meant to share our stories, that we learn how to live well by listening and contemplating others' lives. Once I finally called myself a writer, the stories seemed grateful to be spoken.

Q: What was the most difficult part of writing the book?

A: Reading it when it was done. When I sat down to read the full manuscript, I was really knocked over, and it surprised me. It was as if I were meeting that girl and her parents and her child for the first time. I felt such overwhelming love and compassion for all of them. It was a difficult experience, one I had not anticipated at all.

Q: How did your son find you when he was 21? What was your initial reaction?

A: For a variety of reasons, he petitioned the court. A social worker contacted me by phone one day saying that my son wanted to have contact. My response was clear and immediate. I had waited 21 years for that call. I said yes, I want to meet him now. She told me that she would call again in a week to see if I still felt that way. I couldn't understand why we needed to waste more time.

Q: What sort of relationship did you have, in their later years, with your parents?

A: Well, I follow those paths for a long way in "Without a Map." My mother died of MS. By that time, we were close, and shared a lot of love, although the past was never spoken of or rectified. The scene in my father's car was the last time I saw him.

Q: What sort of reactions have you gotten to the book from family members?

A: Memoir is so hard for a family. The very essential question of whose story this is is woven into every word of a memoir. I cannot tell my stories without also telling the stories of the people I love. My children and my siblings have been wonderful, supportive, encouraging. But I know that it is a difficult process for all of them. None of them had ever heard most of what is in the book, so I think there is a reaction of both compassion and great interest. Memoir is so exposing.

Q: What do you think you learned about yourself in writing this?

A: I thought that I was writing about the griefs that come from the loss of people we love deeply ­ my child, my mother and my father. As I wrote, I was flooded with love and great tenderness for my parents. And I was surprised to feel great love and tenderness for the young girl who had experienced those losses. But if this is a study of the failures and graces of love, I also came to see that it would be, of course, also about my own failures and abundance of love. I see myself in my imperfect parents. I also came to see that I live my life with a certain calm and fullness, a deep sense of gratitude and awe.

Q: What do you hope people take away from this book?

A: Loss is known by everyone. And similar stories of loss are held unspoken by many, many people. I hope that people feel that their own stories are reflected here, and that they might tell their own stories. I believe that living is always, ultimately, about love, about learning to love well and fully, about feeding our great hungers with larger sorts of love.

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at: rrouthier@pressherald.com