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Tales of Midlife Mayhem
A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife.
Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn't end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair's root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything).
Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting―the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries―Laurie accepts it. And then some. With unintentional abandon, she shoplifts a bag of russet potatoes. Heckles a rude driver from her beat-up Prius. And engages in epic trolling on Nextdoor.com. That, says Laurie, is the brilliance of growing older. With each passing day, you lose an equivalent amount of fear.
And the #1 New York Times bestselling author has never been so fearlessly funny as she is in this empowering, candid, and enlightening memoir about living life on the other side of fifty.
"Witty and full of sarcastic energy, the author fearlessly tackles what it means to get old not only as a modern woman, but as a member of the 'coolest'—if at times clueless—generation of the late 20th century. Unplugged, refreshingly off the hook, and consistently entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Notaro riffs on her unpreparedness for navigating life after turning 50 and the surprising benefits of getting older in this tongue-in-cheek memoir...Notaro's fans who've aged right alongside her will feel like they're on a call with a best friend." - Publishers Weekly
"This author shows it's hard work to make it to 50, but she is here to help readers transition from adult to older adult with sage advice, raucous laughs, and just the right amount of potty-mouthed language. Fans of Annabelle Gurwitch and Helen Ellis will likely enjoy this book as well, plus laugh out loud at this candid comedy of errors and older people." - Library Journal
This information about Excuse Me While I Disappear was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
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Photo: Cat Dosset
Laurie Notaro has been fired from seven jobs, laid off from three, and voluntarily liberated from one. Despite all that, she has managed to write a number of New York Times bestselling essay collections, including The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, and Housebroken. She lives with her husband in Oregon, where—according to her mother, who refuses to visit—she sleeps in a trailer in the woods.
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