Entertaining and very honest! Laura Lippman takes you inside her crappy year complete with injury, death, divorce and just about everything else that seems to be crumbling. She doesn't hide that things suck but at the same time, she is privileged. I appreciate that. I always been fascinated by the lives of authors so this one was a fun one to read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Over the years, I have read and enjoyed many Laura Lippman novels, so when I saw The Summer of Fall, a very personal essay written by Lippman, I wanted to read it. Lippman chronicles a bad year in her life: the end of her marriage, a bad fall in the subway (other falls follow), the death of a friend, the progressive illness of her sister. On top of all this, Laura Lippman’s 91 year old mother also experiences a bad fall. Sometimes we have good years and sometimes we have bad years.

Forgive me. It has been a difficult summer, in a difficult year, smack dab on the heels of two previous difficult years, which followed several difficult years, although I have only recently come to admit to myself how troubled 2017 to 2019 were. I keep doing what multiple therapists–well, two–have beseeched me to avoid. I create a narrative out of everything that happens to me. Professional liability.

While this is a very personal essay, there’s no mud-slinging here. Lippman talks about her X, and references a film, but there are no ugly details–in spite of the intimate tone of the essay. Instead Lippman notes being able to vacation with her former husband as “coparents.” Hats off to her for that. Lippman also discusses (the sometimes nastiness of) social media and celebrity. Throughout the essay, Lippman reveals her vulnerabilities along with a wry acceptance of life’s difficulties. Fans will enjoy this glimpse into Lippman’s life–personal yes, but also diplomatically curated.

I really loved this novella/essay about the trials and tribulations of women in midlife.

Mystery writer Laura Lippman writes about all the challenges she's facing as a member of the "sandwich generation," as they used to call it, otherwise known as women in middle age who are parenst, spouses, the caregivers of aging family members, all while trying to carve out something for themselves.

Lippman has a mother in her 90s. A younger sister, also with serious health issues. A teenager, whom she is co-parenting after being unceremoniously dumped by her famous husband. Her own aches and pains of middle age. Her writing, which is clearly a welcome escape from all the chaos.

I admire her honesty and, in this age of fakeness, her willingness to tell the world that, at that moment, her life is falling apart (hence the title.)

Yes, Lippman is immensely privileged and has a staff of paid physical therapists, trainers, beautifiers of all sorts, plus friends and hangers-on, to help her. I don't see a lack of awareness of her privilege as much as the bemusement of a person who has led a charmed life (which she admits as part of the essay) and then suddenly is hit smack in the face with things that she can't fix or outsource. And, to her credit, she is dealing with all of it, using the resources she has, and doing it with pragmatism and a sense of humor.

Two -- yes, two -- therapists "beseeched" Laura Lippman not to turn the failure of her marriage into a narrative for the world to read, but she did it anyway, in this long essay for Scribd. It's more than a tale of a marriage that's lost its luster. It's also about all the other bad things that happened to her in the same year, including a subway fall that injured her shoulder, her mother's illness, her sister's illness. Not much about her writing career, which may disappoint fans. Although she is an optimistic, outgoing person and generally considers herself lucky, the overall tone here is sad, as a woman in her sixties reflects on the events of her life. The most shocking bit in the essay is her statement that after a long and vibrantly successful career as a genre writer, she still feels inadequate because she doesn't produce literary works.

Laura Lippman's novels are a hit-or-miss with me and this one was a hit. I loved her voice and how she tells about private facts in a very honest way.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

EXCERPT: When my marriage ended, I formed a team of friends and asked them to make me one promise: If I ever tried to go back to my ex, I wanted Team Separation to stage an intervention. Seven of the eight agreed, and even the tender-hearted eighth knew I was better off out of the relationship. Not that I was invited back, as it turns out. Me worrying about returning to my marriage was like someone boycotting a country that has deported them and has no intention of issuing a visa.

ABOUT 'THE SUMMER OF FALL': “Lucky! I’M LUCKY, GODDAMMIT!” So Laura Lippman keeps telling herself throughout the course of a year when she seems everything but. Her marriage crumbles; a beloved friend dies suddenly; her sister’s health fails. Everything and everyone is falling apart. The calamities reach a symbolic climax in the summer of 2022, when she and her mother both suffer bad falls. (Her mom is ninety-one; Lippman herself is merely “exceptionally clumsy.”) Still, she insists, she is lucky.

And in many ways, she is. She has a great kid and a career she loves, and she’s healthy and more or less happy. Yet even a resilient optimist like her can’t deny that life’s catastrophes are indiscriminate and seem always to hit at once.

In this wry and honest memoir of a truly lousy time, she gives an intimate look at her private life — perhaps less hair-raising than her award-winning crime thrillers, but no less engaging. And it’s relatable. Even the most fortunate experience heartache, loss, and physical breakdown of some kind. Lippman’s account of her own hard knocks reminds us that, eventually, adversity comes for everyone.

But she has a more important message: While misfortune might not be a choice, how we respond to it is. Lippman chooses to be a happy warrior. When her friend Terry Teachout, the renowned theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, dies without warning in January 2022, she finds solace in the fact that he’d recently found joy in a new romance. When two friends make the spontaneous decision to marry during a writer’s workshop in Italy, she throws herself into the role of officiant, despite the flatlining of her own marriage. When she ruins her shoulder in a fall, she refuses to swap her fun shoes for something more sensible. She won’t let sorrow and pain get the best of her. Blessings abound, godammit, and there’s still so much to celebrate.

In The Summer of Fall, one of America’s best-loved storytellers tells her own memorable story. Lippman fans will enjoy this rare sneak peek into her life, and new fans are sure to appreciate her humorous, authentic take on the universal themes of marriage, parenting, friendship, and work. As she shows us, hard times are a given, but it’s never too late for a next act.

MY THOUGHTS: I loved the couple of hours I spent in Laura Lippman's company as she talks about 'a truly lousy time' in her life.

Short, entertaining and honest.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.3

#TheSummerofFall #NetGalley

I: @lauramlippman @scribd

T: @LauraMLippman @Scribd

THE AUTHOR: Laura lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her daughter.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Faber and Faber Ltd via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Dream Girl by Laura Lippman for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

I have enjoyed everything Laura Lippman has written. After hearing her speak a few times, i have also come to admire her. I think she's brilliant. The Summer of Fall will, I think, resonate with her fans, have them cheering her on, but maybe make them a little sad. At least, those were this fan's reactions, while coveting her shoe/boot closet.

A little sad but illuminating memoir (mini memoir?) about the current state of Laura Lippman’s life. Everyone she knows keeps falling and ending up in assisted living. Her marriage crumbled (but she keeps helping him out all the time) and her friend died. It’s been a rough time! She is in good humor and keeps going.