Through a series of letters she writes to friends and family, a woman in her early forties attempts to understand the world she finds herself in but never expected. As she enmeshes herself in new dilemmas, she reflects back on the experiences that have brought her to this seemingly impossible reality. In Susan Smith Nash's hands, this familiar if important rite of passage tale becomes startling and strange, terrifying and at times grotesque. No experience in I Never Did Tell You Did I? ever turns out to be simply private; gender problems, family problems, work problems intersect with international economics, politics and violence in a swirl of misunderstanding and danger both emotional and physical. The story takes us through the shock of day-to-day life in Oklahoma, Vermont, Bolivia, Uzbekistan and many other surprising locales. Ultimately, the narrator's search for love in a time of desperate loneliness requires her to look, no matter how disturbing it may be, at the sources of the world's great contemporary disasters.