#BlogTour ‘Separation Anxiety’ by Laura Zigman

About the book…

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.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of ‘Random Things Blog Tours’ for the blog tour invite and Transworld Digital for my ebook copy of ‘Seperation Anxiety’

I really resonated with the character of Judy, the protagonist, caught in a situation without clearly defined borders, trapped on a  chessboard of her own making and unable to advance.

Too poor to divorce, both she and her husband are living in different parts of the same house with their son, Teddy in the middle.

Sperated from the person she used to be-a children’s book writer-which has afforded her the opportunity to live in the house she now finds herself unable to leave, she is desperately grabbing for some semblance of self-literally and metaphorically exemplified by her rummaging in the basement, amongst Teddy’s baby things-she finds his sling.

A piece of equipment abandoned and scoffed at, she now re-purposes it by putting her docile dog in it, enjoying the warmth and companionship of something that does not want to leave her or run away(bribed at first by treats it soon becomes a habit that the dog enjoys).

Laughed at by husband Gary whose mental health issues supercede her own, who spends most of his time smoking marijuana, and ignored by a son who is growing away from her, Judy is one of millions of women feeling lost and without purpose (or so she thinks).

This really connected with me, women are so often defined by their physical biology and without that,the crutch supplied by a reliance on the patriarchal societal construct renders them obsolete. She and Gary try therapy (again) but dismiss the therapist as not being for them, and leave early, showing that they have done this many times before (probably what has landed them in such a poor financial position in the first place). His assertion that her lack of sexual appetitie is the reasont hat their marriage is faltering, and that they cannot afford to move, is further reinforced by her appearance at a career’s day talk which is interrupted by an emergency. Her one achievement , writing a children’s book about identity and being true to yourself, is, ironically, halted and seen as an embarrassment by son Teddy.

As she flounders, you find yourself willing Judy to find herself, she is obviously drowning and as a 50 year old woman, needs to rediscover her self worth. It is wryly funny in a way which evoked Nora Ephron’s ‘Heartburn’, and I found myself championing Judy and urging her out of this state where she feels the weight of familial and societal expectation have crushed her. Her feelings of inadequacy are fully centered in this situation where she has to stay and cannot leave, and her coping mechanism is carrying her dog, Charlotte.

I genuinely really enjoyed reading this book, and would definitely look for other books by Laura Zigman, it is a wonderfully modern character study which made me laugh often, in that interior, recognition type of way rather than guffawing, but laughing all the same.

About the author…

Laura Zigman is the author of ‘Animal Husbandry’, which was a bestseller and was made into the film ‘Someone Like You’, starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd), ‘Dating Big Bird’, ‘Piece Of Work’ and ‘Her’.

She has also been a contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.

She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband, son and deeply human Sheltie.

Links-http://www.laurazigman.com/

Twitter @LauraZigman @TransworldBooks @annecater