Book Review

Angels & Aliens: A Journey West (1999)

Mary Morris
Reviewed by Megan Harlan | Jan 22, 1999
EW's GRADE
B+

Details Writer: Mary Morris; Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction; Publisher: Picador USA

Aura healers, ''young and chatty'' UFO abductees, women who fly as angels through the Crystal Cathedral — such were travel writer Mary Morris' new friends when, in 1988, she left Manhattan for Orange County, Calif., to start afresh as the 40ish single mother of a newborn daughter. In the quirky, calmly confessional memoir-cum-travelogue Angels & Aliens: A Journey West, Morris recalls how she distracted herself from the painful breakup with her baby's commitment-phobic father by posing as a believer in a dizzying array of SoCal-style alternative faiths. Throughout her New Age forays, Morris forgoes satire for wry suspension of disbelief, discovering common ground between her own flight to California and her subjects' eccentric, earnest quests for a more meaningful life. B+

Originally posted Jan 22, 1999 Published in issue #468-469 Jan 22, 1999 Order article reprints

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