How To Travel

Frances Mayes rediscovers the meaning of home while living abroad

Living outside one’s native land tends to turn people into storytellers — they build narratives of tragedy, comedy, and if extraordinarily lucky, fairy tales. The author Frances Mayes, now in her 80s, has by any measure lived all three, but primarily the fairy tale.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, she cashed out and used the equity in her San Francisco …