by Jessi Klein
First published 2022
Jessi Klein confronts the impossible task of explaining the world's horrors to her child. She wonders if she could simply play Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and field the inevitable questions, starting with why such a song ever made it onto radio. The Emmy Award-winning writer and New York Times bestselling author dismantles cultural myths about motherhood while examining the absurdities of middle age. Klein navigates everything from listening to Beyoncé in a Party City parking lot to contemplating how quickly husbands remarry after their wives die. She mourns her aging feet and writes love letters to home design stars Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent. Through interconnected essays, Klein reveals the cruel ironies and unexpected joys of this life stage. Her signature candor exposes the gap between expectation and reality, finding humor in humiliation and meaning in the mundane moments that define midlife motherhood.
Genres: essays, family-life, american-fiction, humor, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, family-dynamics, personal-growth
288 pages · Hardcover · Harper