Michael N. McGregor’s THE LAST GRAND TOUR and AN ISLAND TO MYSELF
Content welcomes Michael N. McGregor for an event around his two recent books: the novel THE GRAND TOUR and the memoir AN ISLAND TO MYSELF. Join us on Thursday, June 5th at 7 pm, when Michael will be in conversation with fellow author and St. Olaf professor Kaethe Schwehn.
On THE LAST GRAND TOUR:
“A captivating exploration of the promise and burden of passionate love.”- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
American tour guide Joe Newhouse wants nothing more than to reach Venice. Since moving to Munich after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s watched his business fail, his wife leave him, and his love for Europe diminish. Now he faces one last ten-day tour with a surly group that doesn’t want to be there. As he leads them through the mythic lands of Europe’s Romantic past, he grows increasingly disturbed by their stories of earlier lives, puzzled by their desire to be with a man who doesn’t arrive, and entangled in an illicit affair that promises to either save him or plunge his tour-and his life-into madness.
Soaked in the Romantic atmosphere and dark deeds of old Europe-as well as the freedoms and hopes of a new era-The Last Grand Tour takes us on a perilous journey through Hitler’s Berchtesgaden, Mozart’s Salzburg, and Mad King Ludwig’s Bavarian fantasyland before reaching its stunning climax in the murky waters of Venice. Along the way, it explores the often-shifting lines between fidelity and freedom, illusion and reality, regret and desire.
On AN ISLAND TO MYSELF:
In his twenties, writer and activist Michael McGregor traveled to the remote Greek island of Patmos to spend two months alone. It was 1985, before cellphones or the internet, when even a phone call home was costly. Those days transformed his understanding of himself, his God, and his purpose—and in this book he offers, for others, how finding a place of solitude can change a life.
McGregor had spent three years writing about the world’s poorest people and five months traveling when he chose, at 27, to live for two months in total solitude, 6,000 miles from home. He went primarily to write a novel, but from the moment he stepped onto the ferry to begin the 11-hour ride to Patmos, he knew his time would be meaningful. As he settled into a routine that included hours of writing each day, walks through fierce wind in the evenings, and nights that brought on dreams, memories, and unexpected spiritual encounters, he soon realized that solitude can be difficult and even dangerous but also awe-inspiring and life-altering.
McGregor immerses the reader in particulars of the simple life he lived for two winter months on an island where he knew no one. He reflects on authors and spiritual teachers before showing the ways in which his returns to solitude in subsequent decades reflected or altered his earlier experiences of being alone.
In the book’s final section, McGregor returns to Patmos during the same January dates he visited four decades earlier. He attempts to replicate his earlier experience. His reflections on the changes in his life, the island world, and his understanding of both God and solitude add another dimension to this multifaceted book.
Michael N. McGregor is an award-winning author, essayist, journalist, and biographer. His first book, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and several other prizes, and his first novel, The Last Grand Tour, published earlier this year, received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. His first memoir, An Island to Myself: the Place of Solitude in an Active Life, will be published by Monkfish Publishing in May 2025.
The New York Times has praised McGregor’s writing as “vivid and engaging” and Image magazine has called it “emotionally honest, intellectually engaging, and profound in its search for spiritual truth.” His work covers the range from short to long fiction, reported to personal nonfiction, secular to spiritual contemplation of both inner and outer life.
A former professor of creative writing, McGregor holds an MFA from Columbia University and has published over 300 shorter works in publications such as Tin House, StoryQuarterly, Poetry, and Orion. He lives in Seattle, where he hosts the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation series.
You can learn more about him and his writings by visiting michaelnmcgregor.com