Linda Murphy Marshall

MULTI-LINGUIST, MEMOIRIST, ESSAYIST, POET, ARTIST
2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner in Travel/Travel Guide

Immersion

A Linguist’s Memoir

 Fans of the self-discovering journeys in Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Andrew McCarthy’s The Longest Way Home will love diving into linguist Linda Murphy Marshall’s adventure-filled international journey as she overcomes her past to find her place in the world—all over the world.

PRAISE FOR IMMERSION

“A fluent and far-ranging celebration of communication and world travel.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Languages open up opportunities, according the memoir Immersion, which is about staying true to one’s authentic identity…the book ably imparts a sense of the universality of the human condition, capturing feelings like grief and gratitude in time with Marshall’s poignant, ongoing search for her sense of self. The more she learned, the more secure she became, including in her burgeoning feminism and sense of personal power.”

Foreword Reviews

“Author Linda Murphy Marshall plunges readers into the mission of a government multi-linguist who battles her own self-doubts and fears in the midst of often tumultuous and frightening environments. Immersion – A Linguist’s Memoir is a fascinating exploration of not only the key role of language, but also the personal journey toward self-realization.”

Donna Koros Stramella, author of Among the Bones

Immersion is a memoir that takes the reader on a captivating emotional and physical journey through Linda Murphy Marshall’s life: from the longstanding, crippling impact of family members’ low expectations and abuse, to her discovery as a young adult that she possesses special skills in foreign languages. Linda is taught from an early age that she has little of value to offer the world. But her love of and affinity for languages enables her to create a new life—to separate herself from her toxic environment and to build a successful, decades-long career as a professional multilinguist. It’s a rewarding vocation, but a challenging one: her assignments with the US federal government take her on some hair-raisingly dangerous journeys, some to countries with unstable governments and even active war zones. But these sometimes-harrowing experiences teach her how to open the “windows” around her, unearth her true self, and develop a healthy sense of self-worth—and ultimately, paradoxically, her work and travel so far from home allow her to come home to herself.”

Booklife

2022 Best Book Awards – American Book Fest
Finalist in Nonfiction: Creative

Ivy Lodge

A Memoir of Translation and Discovery

Following the deaths of her parents, Linda Murphy Marshall returns to her Midwestern childhood home; in the process of going through each room, she evokes memories and insights from her patriarchal 1960s upbringing, and—informed by her training as a translator—finds new meanings in the often disturbing events that took place in that home.

PRAISE FOR IVY LODGE

“A moving, courageously frank, and sharply intuitive account about a manor filled with memories…The author’s imaginative, elegant prose beguiles from the outset….Thoughtfully conceived, this deeply personal, acutely observed recollection is a captivating voyage to the past.” Kirkus starred review

“Murphy Marshall uses her skills as a professional translator to decode everything left unsaid…Murphy Marshall’s intimate knowledge of language shines through…Murphy Marshall is a clear-eyed raconteuse, translating her early life faithfully while preserving the mysteries of her family’s first language  – silence.”

Los Angeles Review of Books

“Marshall’s memories still carry a certain pain, even with the passing of time. However, in her collective portrait of Ivy Lodge and those who lived within it, she creates a compassionate whole, narrated in the acquired language of forgiveness.”

Foreword Reviews

“An insightful memoir…a sometimes painful, always poignant review of experiences that led to the writer and translator she is today.”

St. Louis Post Dispatch

“Marshall’s accomplished, incisive memoir….[H]er considerable acumen as a prose stylist…[H]er portraits of family and accounts of conflicts …prove as striking as her descriptions of her beloved dolls, her father’s toy soldiers, and Ivy Lodge’s lofty gables…..[S]he proves a persuasive, perceptive analyst of the ‘Murphy dynamic’….a touching reckoning with a family, a home, and one’s place in both, in elegant prose.”

Booklife

“A unique memoir triggered by the death of the author’s parents…an exciting recollection…a captivating journey into the author’s past…A deeply personal and honest account that captures the reader’s heart early on…This book is a masterpiece of social observation and self-scrutiny…Highly recommended.”

Readers’ Favorite