Separation Anxiety
A Novel
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3.7 • 98 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“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
AN ANTICIPATED BOOK FROM:
Entertainment Weekly * Cosmopolitan * USA Today * Real Simple * Parade * Buzzfeed * Glamour * PopSugar
From bestselling author Laura Zigman, a hilarious novel about a wife and mother whose life is unraveling and the well-intentioned but increasingly disastrous steps she takes to course-correct her relationships, her career, and her belief in herself
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.
Wickedly funny and surprisingly tender, Separation Anxiety offers a frank portrait of middle-aged limbo, examining the ebb and flow of life’s most important relationships. Tapping into the insecurities and anxieties that most of us keep under wraps, and with a voice that is at once gleefully irreverent and genuinely touching, Laura Zigman has crafted a new classic for anyone taking fumbling steps toward happiness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Zigman (Animal Husbandry) charts a chaotic time in the life of an eccentric family in her winning and droll latest. Judy Vogel once wrote a successful kids' book, but she followed that up with two commercial flops and a case of writer's block. After running across her 13-year-old son Teddy's former baby sling while cleaning, Judy decides, on a whim, to start carrying the family dog against her chest. Having a warm body close to her eases the sadness of turning 50, Teddy's sudden drift away from her, and her recent separation from her husband, Gary. Unfortunately (and humorously), Judy and Gary can't afford to live apart, and cohabiting helps maintain a charade of normalcy (ostensibly for Teddy). Gary, who works as a self-described "snackologist" selling snacks online, makes the situation barely tenable with his debilitating anxiety, which he eases by smoking marijuana. Financial concerns are somewhat alleviated when they agree to host a troupe of "people puppets" adult performers who put on shows as puppets and a young couple also moves into the house, adding to the weirdness. But when someone begins defecating in the halls of Teddy's school and Teddy becomes a suspect, Judy wonders what effects her instability might be having on him. Snappy wit often offsets the sadness in this zany yet moving story. Zigman's dryly funny, inventive tale shows how hope can be found in midst of crisis. Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly referred to this book as the author's first.
