We are delighted to have best-selling author Laura Zigman join us virtually for Let's Talk Books this month to discuss her latest book, Separation Anxiety.
Excerpt from the publisher, Harper Collins/Ecco: "Judy never intended to start wearing the dog. But when she stumbled across her son Teddy's old baby sling during a halfhearted basement cleaning, something in her snapped. So: the dog went into the sling, Judy felt connected to another living being, and she's repeated the process every day since. Life hasn't gone according to Judy's plan. Her career as a children's book author offered a glimpse of success before taking an embarrassing nose dive. Teddy, now a teenager, treats her with some combination of mortification and indifference. Her best friend is dying. And her husband, Gary, has become a pot-addled professional "snackologist" who she can't afford to divorce. On top of it all, she has a painfully ironic job writing articles for a self-help website, a poor fit for someone seemingly incapable of helping herself."
From Washington Post Book Critic Ron Charles: "The light from Laura Zigman’s new novel, “Separation Anxiety,” is generated by a kind of literary nuclear fusion: an intense compression of grief and humor. The combination of those elements usually produces cynical black comedy, something witty and bitter, but Zigman’s work is too tender for that."
"Separation Anxiety" is a long-awaited comeback for this clever writer who hasn’t published a novel since “Piece of Work” in 2006. A series of personal tragedies, including the deaths of her parents and her own cancer diagnosis, swept Zigman into what she calls “so many dormant years.” But now, she’s transmuted those struggles into a new book — a “second chance” — about a once-successful author whose world is collapsing under the weight of disappointment and fear."
From author Alice Hoffman, “Separation Anxiety is a hilarious, heart-breaking and thought-provoking portrait of a difficult marriage, as fierce as it is funny.... My advice: Start reading and don’t stop until you get to the last page of this wise and wonderful novel." —Alice Hoffman
From Chelsea Handler: “I love Separation Anxiety . . .Laura Zigman is an emotional sharp-shooter—she is able to home in on the most tender, revealing, exquisitely painful aspects of our relationships with others and with ourselves. And somehow she manages to come out the other end with hope, having found what was most meaningful after all. And by the way, I can totally relate to the desire to wear one’s dog. If I could, I would.” —Chelsea Handler
