My Life as a Villainess

March 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.

In this collection of personal essays, author/narrator Laura Lippman covers a range of relatable topics, such as motherhood, social media, body image, and aging, as well as circumstances particular to her own life, such as her path from journalist to award-winning genre novelist. Her soft, expressive delivery finds a comfortable place between performance and storytelling, especially when she's focused on her family: her father's favorite bar, mean girls at her daughter's school, and her mother's knitting, for example. Lippman is comfortable behind the mic, clearly conveying both her sense of humor and her decided opinions--listeners will know exactly where she stands on using a microwave. Her conversational tone and varied cadence create a friendly atmosphere, holding listeners' interest from first to last word. C.B.L. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine