Laura Zigman

This novel about the difficulties in families where one member is disabled is heartfelt, insightful, and rife with self-depricating humor. Sisters Joyce and Lydia, who were never close as children, are thrown together to navigate the past and the future when Lydia moves into Joyce's Cambridge, MA apartment. Both are divorced with no children but that's where the similarities end. Joyce is rigid and inflexible, and also still feeling the lack of love and attention from their parents, whose show more only priority was disabled daughter Eleanor. The humor comes from Joyce's growing recognition that her compartmentalized life isn't sustainable for happiness. She also creates delicious poems from posts she reads on her neighborhood Facebook pages, and these are a true delight. The novel itself is a bit more sobering, but still wholly enjoyable. show less

A million years ago, I read Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman when the movie (Someone Like You) was released. From memory, I didn’t like either very much but in retrospect I think it was that I knew deep down that Hugh Jackman was more than a rom-com actor. I had heard many great things about Separation Anxiety from readers I trust and to be honest, I didn’t even realise it was the same author. Maybe I just needed time and wisdom to appreciate Laura Zigman’s writing because Separation show more Anxiety is the book that you didn’t know you needed it in your life. It’s outlandish, almost zany in parts, but it fits in so well with the current world situation that everything seemed plausible. A middle-aged woman wearing her dog in a sling? A separated couple living in the same house pretending everything is fine (even though they are broke)? People dressed as puppets as house guests? Yep, totally normal.

Beyond this, Separation Anxiety is about not being where you thought you were going to be in your twenties. Judy was a person going places. A bestselling author with a TV series, a musician husband and a cute son. Now, she can barely smash out articles for a self-help website, her husband is a part time snackologist (meaning he chooses and refills snacks for conferences and meetings) and she’s got a surly teenager who his school thinks is defecating in public places. Add to that her dying best friend, a lack of money, living separated but together and a slight obsession with an Instagram influencer. Judy’s is nothing like she had planned. At the root of it all is a lack of money, but perhaps also a fear of loss as everyone seems to be moving away from her. (Except the dog). It’s a story of calamities, foot in mouth situations and awkward moments.

Judy puts it all out there for the reader and that’s one of the reasons that this novel is so endearing. Who hasn’t wondered what if? Or wanted to see if a retreat with the perfect influencer could change your life? Judy embodies the worries, real and imagined that plague everyone’s life. (Except for the reactions of people to wearing a dog in public. That I haven’t seen locally yet. Although as I write this I have a bird on my shoulder. Not on my head). What stops the novel from being a freak out fest is the humour. It’s wry, sarcastic and dry. Judy gets into some incredible situations and they are detailed for full comic potential. It made me giggle and lighten the atmosphere in the story.

This is the book 2020 didn’t know it needed. Give it a go.

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Believe Me, the memoir, is such a treat if you're a fan of Eddie Izzard! I'm sure the physical book is great, I wouldn't know exactly, but I implore you to listen to the audiobook version if you have a choice. The heart of Eddie Izzard's comedy is his niche brand of humor coupled with his signature verbal delivery—vocal riffing, pauses, and non-verbal cues you can practically hear. You'd only get a sense of this from the physical book, but you'll get it in spades with the audiobook.

It was show more sometime in the summer of 2000 when I was at a party and the host queued up a VHS tape of "Dress to Kill," Eddie's Emmy-winning stand-up show. (Note: This would have been before it won the Emmy by a month or so.) That night was the first time I ever heard of Eddie Izzard and I couldn't believe what I was watching. The humor was new and gut-wrenchingly funny and unlike anything I'd seen up to that point. I laughed for the rest of the night and quoted what I could remember for months. I eventually purchased my own copy from eBay. And the rest is history.

For me personally, one of the more resonant sections is Part 2, The Wilderness Years, and specifically, the chapter called "The Streets of London." My two favorite takeaways here are how, despite other reasonable alternatives, Eddie Izzard kept at. This is where he learned stamina. My other favorite moment is when he decided to try solo performing. He says that his whole life he never thought of himself as a solo performer, and then in a six month stretch he changed his mindset and made the switch. Brilliant. I think sometimes we hold on too tightly to ideas we consider lifelong goals. Things change, and we change. It's good to recognize the seismic life shifts when they are right in front of you.

If you're a fan of Eddie Izzard, go read or listen to this book. If you've never heard of him, YouTube. show less

“Life eventually takes away everyone and everything we love and leaves us bereft. Is that its sad lesson? That’s the only explanation I have for why I now wear the dog; my version of magical thinking: little tiny cracks are forming inside me every day and only the dog is keeping me from coming apart completely.”
Judy is narrator of this book. Judy is “middle aged, lost and confused.” She feels that since she turned fifty she is invisible to everyone. In order to get through a show more separation from her husband, her failing career as a writer, the upcoming loss of her son who will be going to college and the fact that her best friend is dying from cancer, she turns to the family dog to help deal with “overwhelming sadness and longing.” “The loneliest feeling of all: having people around you who you could see but couldn’t ever reach.”
All dog lovers will agree with Judy’s belief that a dog is “a long term companion, a provider of love and affection, a protector against loneliness and sadness and grief.” The dog is all those things to Judy. He provides her with comfort from the pain she is feeling as her life is falling apart. Perhaps she is going through some sort of midlife crisis? She begins to wear the dog in a sling around her neck everywhere she goes. That may seem a little crazy, but don’t we all turn to our dogs for comfort?
I loved this witty novel and the quirky narrator and the adorable sheltie that got Judy through the tough parts of her life. show less