It’s a hot summer in 1977. Son of Sam is on the loose and avigilante, Lady X, is meting out justice to abusive men. Linny and Nancy discuss Molly Fader’s new book, LADY X, and the feminine rage three young roommates experience in 1970’s New York. And also, in this dual-timeline book, modern day Margot whose A-list actor husband has been caught sendingcompromising pictures to girls. Ugh. We see women banding together, but this gritty book painfully shows how women also sometimes fail each other. This time, Nancy admits she cried reading the book (usually it’s Linny!). We alsoget updates on Linny’s acting gigs (can you say “speaking roles”?!), and, Nancy’s tennis teams’ trips to Districts and Regionals. In their endeavors, both Linny and Nancy are practicing Dr. Larry Widman’s positive self-talk!
Episode 45. Linda and Nancy discuss MAX OUT MINDSET by Dr.Larry Widman:
Today we interview Lindsey Goldstein about her book, GAP YEAR.
One of her early publications was an adorable personal essay she wrote for THE NEW YORK TIMES' Modern Love column:
At the cusp of 40, Lindsey decided there was only gain to try her hand at becoming a novelist. She wrote her first novel in her early 40s. GAP YEAR was her third novel and first published one.
GAP YEAR takes place in Ecuador, where Lindsey has visited and has swum with the penguins and sea lions, just as Jane did in GAP YEAR. Lindsey, like Jane, also had a gap year (traditional one, though!) and stayed in a hostel. We explore other ways Lindsey pulled from her own experiences, including those as a friend, daughter, and mother to bring realism to the novel.
We talk about youthful dreams and the importance of pursuing those that are meaningful to you, even if in just small steps.
Lindsey tells us how other authors have inspired her passions and her writing, including:
It’s July, so we have a great beach read! It’s a new novel by debut author Lindsay Goldstein. In GAP YEAR, within one evening Jane’s marriage has suddenly ended and her daughter has gone off to Spain for a Gap Year. With the dissolution of her marriage, Jane makes a spontaneous decision to take a gap year of her own and accomplish her lifelong dream of climbing Cotopaxi, the Ecuadoran volcano, and also of visiting the Galapagos Islands. Sounds like a great plan. Except, of course, things don’t go according to plan. This is a fun, funny book that looks at whether it’s possible to recapture the dreams of youth when you’re no longer young. We learn a lot about the Ecuadorian volcano, Cotopaxi, which neither Linny nor Nancy had heard of. In the context of GAP YEAR, we discuss exotic travel dreams, parenting, empty nesting, and friendships.
Our first co-author interview! We meet Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne, the funny and thoughtful authors of THE MIDNIGHT SHOW. These two have great writing chemistry that s evident on the page and in our discussion. They have co-written three previous novels and are also independent authors. We discuss how they came to write together and how their co-writing has evolved over four books. We're thrilled to learn that their first co-written novel, THE ANTIQUITY AFFAIR, features two sisters on an Indiana Jones-type adventure. That book will be added to our TBR lists. We learn how Lee and Jennifer devised and executed the unique, mixed media form of THE MIDNIGHT SHOW. Hot tip: they've played with inserting bits of mixed media since their first novel. In THE MIDNIGHT SHOW, well, they went 100% in and it's fabulous. We discuss some of the challenges working women and women comedians faced back in the day, oh, and still face. We also discuss generational perspectives on these challenges. But we also laugh a lot together. Just four Pennsylvania girls having a great hang on the Front Porch!
Our book this month is called THE MIDNIGHT SHOW and it was written by two authors: Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne. This isn’t a typical novel: the entire book is of the memos, interviews, old news articles, emails, voice mails, and transcripts that our lead character, Madeline Cohen accumulates. Madeline is a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. She pitches a story that will look back to 1980 to the season premiere of The Midnight Show (sort of like a Saturday Night Live sketch show) and explore how funny women, then and now, are commodified or dismissed. She also wants to evaluate how the comedy world contributed to the unsolved death of one of the show’s breakout stars, Lillian Martin. We really liked the format of the book and know the authors had a great time placing the contradictory narratives sequentially, highlighting the complexity of the characters’ perspectives.
We conclude the episode with Nancy’s quiz for Linny about first cast of Saturday Night Live. Linny then turns the tables with her own questions. We also learn about Linny’s first speaking role in her acting gigs.
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