A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake.
Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were getting divorced.
“I feel like such a schmuck,” she wrote “because I stuck it out like the Good Girl I was raised to be, only to be dumped 9 days after my 61st birthday (and one month before the Covid lockdowns). I didn’t even have the triumphant narrative of: “Reader, I left him.” But, five years out, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”
That happiness is evident in her immensely enjoyable new book, her 20th, I think!, Murder Takes A Vacation, about a woman in her 60s slowly realising that life is full of possibility. (And dead bodies, of course!)
Laura joined me from Baltimore to talk about her second coming, why not everyone is good at marriage, the dissonance of divorce, making bad choices, the death of the good girl and how she finally gave up diets. Laura is living her best old lady life and I’m here for it.
* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Murder Takes A Vacation by Laura Lippmann as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.
* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.
• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com
• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.
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