No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments »

BROOKE BERMAN is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced across the US and in London. She is a two-time recipient of both the Francesca Primus Award and a Lecompte du Nouy award. She is also a recipient of a Berilla Kerr Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and a commissioning grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for the play Until We Find Each Other, which was produced at Steppenwolf in 2002, and directed by Anna Shapiro. Brooke's play Hunting and Gathering premiered at Primary Stages and was named one of the Top Ten Plays of 2008 by New York magazine.
 
Visit her at brookeberman.net

Humorous, poignant, and honest, No Place Like Home is the story of one woman’s journey to feel settled without settling, and her realization that home is much more than an address.  

Brooke Berman moved to New York as a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old eager to call the big city home. Candid, funny, and thoughtful, in No Place Like Home, we follow Brooke’s adventures as she crisscrosses town trying to make ends meet and make her dreams of a life in the theater come true.

With each apartment, from the heavenly to the horrible, she learns more about how to heal the past, let go of excess, and keep a sense of humor while trying to stay flexible in the search for stability. No Place Like Home reminds everyone of the age-old struggle not just to find a house, but to build a true home.
 

Publishers Weekly

In this engaging chronology spanning twenty years, from college to hard-won success, the award-winning playwright tells her story of searching for home. The once-aspiring performing artist explores the world through vastly different New York neighborhoods, a series of part-time jobs, an enviable stint at Julliard, and slowly increasing acclamation. She recognizes an undeniable wish in herself to separate from her mother, a wish complicated by the bonds of shared history and an illness in later life. Even after surviving being raped in her early twenties, and insisting on independence, Berman is consumed for years in a yo-yo like love affair. Her writing moves fluidly as she schleps from studio to loft to the occasional luxury apartment, while angst, always present, only occasionally becomes annoying. (Jun.)