For readers of Also a Poet, Orwell’s Roses , and My Autobiography Of Carson McCullers —as well as the legions of Virginia Woolf fanatics—the acclaimed poet and author of The Crying Book  crafts a deeply moving, immersive, and lyrical hybrid memoir about her mother, Woolf, and the transformative power of writing. When Heather Christle realizes that she, her mother, and Virginia Woolf share a traumatic history, she begins to rewrite and intertwine each of their stories, in search of a more hopeful narrative and a future she can live with.   On a recent visit to London's Kew Gardens, Christle’s mother revealed details of a painful story from her past that took place there, under circumstances that strangely paralleled Heather's own sexual assault during a visit to London as a teenager.   Her private, British mother’s revelation—a rare burst of vulnerability in their strained relationship—propels Christle down a deep and destabilizing rabbit hole of investigation, as she both reads and wanders the streets of her mother's past, peeling back the layers of family mythologies, England’s sanctioned historical narratives, and her own buried memories. Over the course of several trips to London, with and without her mother, she visits her family's "birthday hill" in Kew Gardens, the now-public homes of the Bloomsbury set, the archives of the British Library, and the backyard garden where Woolf wrote her final sentence. All the while, she finds that Woolf and her writings not only constantly seem to connect and overlap with her mother’s story, but also that the author becomes a kind of vital intermediary: a sometimes confidante, sometimes mentor, sometimes distancing lens through which Christle can safely observe her mother and their experiences.   Wide-ranging and prismatic, the fruit of an insatiably curious, delightfully brilliant mind, In the Rhododendrons is part memoir, part biography of Virginia Woolf, part reckoning with the things we cannot change and the ways we can completely transform, if we dare. This utterly original book will stir readers into new ways of seeing their own lives. Named a Best/Most Recommended Book of the Season/Year by  Town & Country ,  Chicago Review of Books ,  Poetry Northwest ,  The Millions , Literary Hub , and Daily Kos "Christle’s exacting rigor and ferocious curiosity are matched only by the utter eccentricity of her vision, the delicious and frankly peerless freshness of her idiom: 'There is a difference between bones and a book,' she writes, 'but both have at their center a spine.' What results is irreducibly human.  In the Rhododendrons  is vital consolation. It’s a triumph, an instant classic. Christle has become one of our art’s most urgent living practitioners."― Kaveh Akbar, New York Times-bestselling author of Martyr! “I first fell in love with Heather Christle’s writing in The Crying Book and her astonishing hybrid memoir, In the Rhododendrons , cements my devotion. In Christle’s narrative of discovery, of pilgrimages and portals, silence and reclamation, and the surprising bonds between a mother, a daughter, and Virginia Woolf, readers will experience a rare and wondrous mind at work. Heart-breaking, revelatory, exquisite, and ultimately ecstatic, this book is a gift.”― Jessamine Chan, New York Times-bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers "Christle copes by weaving her revelations into discussions of history, culture, literature and geography so that the story reads like a discursive conversation with a friend...All of these details are fascinating, mesmerizing even, and Christle delivers them with a light touch, reminding me of Virginia Woolf herself."― The Washington Post “For lovers of Virginia Woolf and nonfiction, you don’t want to miss In the Rhododendrons … Christie ties together these three narratives like a finely built nest to illuminate key moments in each life. In the Rhododendrons has us wondering why every memoir doesn’t include more conversation about Virginia Woolf.”― Chicago Review of Books "Christle wills the stories of Woolf and other doomed women 'to turn otherwise.' Ultimately, she knows, they cannot. But for her and her mother, there is a gradual turning. No climactic showdown or Hollywood hug. Just a simple, powerful realisation: 'We do want to understand one another. We do want to be understood.' The journey carries on. “She is sensitive; she is also brave,” Christle writes of her mother – a description that applies to them both, and to this book." ― The Guardian “ In the Rhododendrons is an emotional memoir that also serves as an individual intellectual history, moving between generalizations about what poets love and how people are and highly specific scenes of (dis)connection, (un)realization, and the Wo(o)lf that guides.”― Poetry Northwest's Favorite Books for Spring “The precise observations and playful juxtapositions Christle deploys in her poetry, and the fusion of personal revelation with