"Taking Leave is a lyrical memoir and meditation on the titular practice in its many senses-from the author's mother leaving her marriage, to her own taking leave of the Jewish and Christian faiths she was raised in to embrace Sufi Islam, and her taking leave of her home country to live as an expatriate in France and Morocco. Deborah Kapchan also reflects on the more mystical taking leave through meditation and other religious practice-taking leave of your body and senses-whether through solemn Sufi mystical practice or Afro-Islamic possession trances. As Kapchan moves along her journey from her split religious upbringing in the Bronx to her research travel and mystical exploration, we see how taking leave means remaining rooted, and the complexities of in-betweenness that this results in across these contexts"--
