LADYPARTS

A frank, wit­ty, and daz­zling­ly writ­ten mem­oir of one Jew­ish woman try­ing to keep it togeth­er while her body falls apart. Part cri de coeur cau­tion­ary tale, part dystopi­an tragi­com­e­dy, Lady­parts is Copak­en’s irrev­er­ent and Borscht-belt humor-infused inven­to­ry of both the female body and the body politic of wom­an­hood in Amer­i­ca. With her jour­nal­ist’s eye, her nov­el­ist’s heart, and her per­former’s sense of tim­ing, she pro­vides a front­line account of one woman brought to her knees by the one-two-twelve punch of divorce, solo moth­er­hood, lack of health­care, unaf­ford­able child­care, shady land­lords, her father’s death, col­lege tuitions, sex­u­al harass­ment, cor­po­rate indif­fer­ence, ageism, sex­ism, and just plain old bad luck. Plus sev­en seri­ous ill­ness­es, one on top of the oth­er, which pro­vide the book’s nar­ra­tive skele­ton: vagi­na, uterus, breast, heart, cervix, brain, and lungs. She keeps bounc­ing back from each bum body part and find­ing the black humor in every set­back, but in her strug­gle to sur­vive a steep plunge off the mid­dle-class lad­der, she is sud­den­ly awok­en to what it means to have no safe­ty net.

Deb­o­rah Copak­en is the New York Times best­selling author of Shut­terbabe & The Red Book. A con­tribut­ing writer at The Atlantic, she’s also a Gold­en Globe-nom­i­nat­ed TV writer (Emi­ly in Paris), per­former, Emmy-win­ning news pro­duc­er, and pho­to­jour­nal­ist. Her pho­tographs have appeared in Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Her writ­ing has appeared in The New York­er, The New York Times, Guardian, Observ­er, The Wall Street Jour­nal, and The Nation. Her col­umn ​“When Cupid Is a Pry­ing Jour­nal­ist” was adapt­ed for the Mod­ern Love Ama­zon series.

You may purchase Ladyparts by Deborah Copaken at:

* Flashlight Books in Walnut Creek, https://flashlightbooks.handseller.com/home/bookdetailsin/1984855476

* Rakestraw Books in Danville, https://www.rakestrawbooks.com/book/9781984855473

* Your local bookstore or preferred online retailer.

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Sponsors: CCJCC, Cong. B'nai Shalom and the Jewish Book Council.