My Life as a Villainess

by Laura Lippman

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman, a journalist for many years, collects here her recent essays exploring motherhood as an older mom, her life as a reader, her relationships with her parents, friendship, and other topics that will resonate with a large audience.  Her voice is wry and relatable, her takes often surprising.

Meet the Woman Behind the Books…

In this collection of new and previously published essays, New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman offers her take on a woman's life across the decades. Her childhood and school years, her newspaper career, her experiences as a novelist—Lippman finds universal touchstones in an unusual life that has as many twists as her award-winning crime fiction.

Essays include:

·         Men Explain The Wire to Me

·         Game of Crones

·         My Life as a Villainess

·         My Father’s Bar

·         The 31^st Stocking

These candid essays offer long-time readers insight into the experiences that helped Lippman become one of the most successful crime novelists of her generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062997333
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	662,222
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Since Laura Lippman's debut in 1997, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the "essential" crime writers of the last 100 years. Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her family.

Hometown:

Baltimore, Maryland

Date of Birth:

January 31, 1959

Place of Birth:

Atlanta, Georgia

Education:

B.S., Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, 1981

Editorial Reviews

03/30/2020

Self-awareness, a knack for observation, and a dose of snark fuel the uneven but occasionally potent debut collection from Edgar Award–winning crime novelist Lippman (The Lady in the Lake). As Lippman explains, “There is a sense of liberation in admitting to one’s faults” and in fact she “had to stretch to earn the title” of villainess. The essays sometimes feel as though they could have gone deeper into their subject, but nuggets of insight show up consistently enough to compensate, as when she comments, “Our culture long ago made peace with the fragility of matrimony, but we still have high expectations for friendships.” Lippman is at her best when confronting society’s expectations of women, especially while discussing becoming a late-in-life mom. About menopause, she drily comments that it “doesn’t make women want to die. It makes other people wish we would die, or at least disappear.” Rightfully asking to be judged on her own terms, not on those of the women she cites as inevitable comparisons for a female essayist—Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Susan Sontag—Lippman contributes an appealingly candid voice to the literary conversation. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"...compelling and clever self-interrogation." — Los Angeles Times

"Lippman’s revelations about herself and her life are refreshingly candid and imbued with a seriously robust overtone of humor, a double-barreled approach that dovetails nicely with Lippman’s self-description of being 'gleefully honest.'" — Boston Globe

"Candid and quirky, this book will have special appeal to fans of her crime fiction. A wryly observed collection from a reliably good writer." — Kirkus Reviews

"She revels in confession and connection, surprise and provocation, and she performs all with panache, wisdom, wit, and courage. Lippman asserts: “I’m a tough old bird,” and readers will declare: and one helluva true-tale teller." — Booklist

"The essays, some new, some previously published, are overall a delight...Fans of Lippman’s novels (The Lady in the Lake) and her Twitter followers will gobble up this short collection and beg for more nonfiction from this gifted storyteller." — Library Journal

"With its 'gleefully honest' hits of humor and willingness to take a close look at some discomfiting truths, it will come as no surprise to Lippman’s fans that My Life as a Villainess is an engaging read—an intrepid investigation of the author’s inner landscape..." — BookPage

From the Publisher

"She revels in confession and connection, surprise and provocation, and she performs all with panache, wisdom, wit, and courage. Lippman asserts: “I’m a tough old bird,” and readers will declare: and one helluva true-tale teller."

Booklist

"...compelling and clever self-interrogation."

Los Angeles Times

"With its 'gleefully honest' hits of humor and willingness to take a close look at some discomfiting truths, it will come as no surprise to Lippman’s fans that My Life as a Villainess is an engaging read—an intrepid investigation of the author’s inner landscape..."

BookPage

"...compelling and clever self-interrogation."

|Los Angeles Times

"Lippman’s revelations about herself and her life are refreshingly candid and imbued with a seriously robust overtone of humor, a double-barreled approach that dovetails nicely with Lippman’s self-description of being 'gleefully honest.'"

Boston Globe

"She revels in confession and connection, surprise and provocation, and she performs all with panache, wisdom, wit, and courage. Lippman asserts: “I’m a tough old bird,” and readers will declare: and one helluva true-tale teller."

Booklist