Publisher's Synopsis
Recipient of fifteen prizes and honors, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back is a girl-and-her-backpack story with a #MeToo framing set in S.E. Asia and Japan in the late 1980s.
Carlie is not merely traveling. A child trauma survivor as a teen, she steals ten thousand dollars and runs away to Asia. Through Hong Kong, The Philippines, Bali, and Thailand, the Lonely Planet path of hookups, heat, alcohol, and drugs takes on a terrifying reality for the young survivor. Trading sex for protection, Carlie retreats to alcohol and self-starvation.
Finally, on the tiny island of oh Phangan, Thailand-home to the infamous Full Moon party-Carlie falls in with an international crew of Tai chi-practicing backpackers.
Landing in Tokyo, Carlie has the chance at a journey she did not plan for: to find the self-respect ripped from her as a child and the healthy sexuality she desires.
A few of those awards:
- First Place, The 2022 National League of American Pen Women's Mary Kennedy Eastham Flash Fiction Prize (for an excerpt)
- First Finalist (for an excerpt); The 2020 Lascaux Prize
- Book Viral's Best Women's Trauma Narrative Fiction
- Book Viral's 2024 Golden Quill Award
- Longlisted: Book Viral's 2024 Millennium Book Award
- Finalist, The 2024 PNWA Nancy Pearl Book Award
- Nominated, 2024 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Book Award for Literary Fiction
"Sheer effortlessness, despite touching on the most harrowing life experiences. Displays a finesse rarely seen in a graphically written trauma narrative. " -Book Viral
"Alle C. Hall may never know how many people she will help with this novel." -Joyce, June and Paula Kavanaugh, founders of Ireland's Count Me In! Survivors of Sexual Abuse Standing Together for Change
"A rare novel that shows how easily childhood trauma can be internalized and normalized, distorting our coming-of-age. Hall puts us inside that headspace then walks us through a maze of globe-trotting dissociation to a better, more hopeful place. An outstanding debut." -Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
"With a realistic redemption arc, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back is a novel in which a survivor of abuse achieves a gritty, tender coming-of-age and reinvents herself." -Karen Ribgy, The Foreword
"One of the strongest authorial voices I've heard in a very long time. A formidable story that broke my heart, and ultimately gave me hope." -Anna Quinn, author of The Night Child
"With powerful writing that demands a reader's attention from the start, Hall navigates the dissociative nature of trauma and the staggered process of the often unpredictable paths we take in order to understand ourselves." -Andrea J. Buchanan, Five-Part Invention, PEN finalist and New York Times bestselling author
