Trailing: A Memoir - Paperback

by Kristin Louise Duncombe (Author)

Trailing is a compulsively page-turning memoir, offering the kind of raw and poignant look inside of a (sometimes failing) marriage that we rarely get to see.

Life takes an unexpected turn for Kristin Louise Duncombe when she falls in love with a doctor from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and follows him to East Africa, where she must contend with violence, witchcraft, and the life-or-death stakes MSF doctors face day and night.

After a childhood traveling the world as the daughter of a U.S. diplomat, Kristin plans to build a psychotherapy practice in the vibrant city of New Orleans. But it seems that history is destined to repeat itself when she meets Tano, a handsome Argentinian doctor, who sets her life on a new path as a "trailing" spouse, following him on a medical mission to a Kenya.
Just when Kristin has managed to establish a life for herself in Nairobi, a violent carjacking catapults her into a state of acute post-traumatic stress, and her life thereafter devolves into a world of intense anxiety that permeates every aspect of her existence.

As her marriage falls apart, Kristin realizes that in trailing after Tano as he pursues his life's work, she has lost herself along the way. Forced to examine her choices, Kristin enters the most difficult fight of her life: reinventing who she was meant to be.

Duncombe's memoir, as humorous as it is harrowing, provides a close-up of a marriage on the brink, the sacrifices made in the name of love, and ultimately the transformation that can happen when you choose yourself.

Author Biography

Kristin Louise Duncombe is an American psychotherapist, consultant, and writer who has lived in France since 2001. Having grown up overseas as the child of a US diplomat, and having lived internationally most of her adult life, she has based her career on working with international and expatriate families. She has twenty years of experience in the United States, East Africa, and Europe.