Separation Anxiety: A Novel

Kids and pets are the glue that keep families together. That's what I got from this book. It's too bad more couples don't realize that and it's a good thing Gary and Judy realized this at the end. This is a book about forcing yourself to move forward, while trying to keep your economic lifeboat afloat. It's ok for Judy to get that teaching certificate if it helps relieve her anxiety about money. We have to recognize when we move through certain points in our lives that we have to make decisions for our quality of life for our family rather than what we want. Without our pets, I am fairly certain my own family when I was growing up would have collapsed and I am fairly certain I might have been homeless at one point if the thought of giving up my pets hadn't forced me to try harder and work harder. There are some really interesting and embarrassing situations that Judy goes through but ultimately she needs to focus on what she can do instead of what is wrong with everyone else. So I connected to this book because of the pets. From reading the interview with the author at the end of the book, it is obvious that this book is somewhat autobiographical from her own life struggles. I can relate because there were two or three times over the last 18 years I thought I would just completely crumble but somehow I got through things and took any opportunity I saw. I went from almost bankrupt and homeless to owning a home 4 years later. I can totally relate to this author if not to all of the main character's experiences. This is worthwhile read and I plan to keep this book.

Judy never intended to start wearing the dog. But when she stumbled across her son Teddy’s old baby sling during a halfhearted basement cleaning, something in her snapped. So: the dog went into the sling, Judy felt connected to another living being, and she’s repeated the process every day since. Life hasn’t gone according to Judy’s plan. Her career as a children’s book author offered a glimpse of success before taking an embarrassing nosedive. Teddy, now a teenager, treats her with some combination of mortification and indifference. Her best friend is dying. And her husband, Gary, has become a pot-addled professional “snackologist” who she can’t afford to divorce. On top of it all, she has a painfully ironic job writing articles for a self-help website—a poor fit for someone seemingly incapable of helping herself.My Thoughts: From the beginning of Separation Anxiety, we connect with Judy’s voice as she shares her sometimes snarky and often humorous thoughts about life, loss, and anxiety, while struggling to find new ways to cope. Wearing the dog might seem drastic or even weird, but to Judy, it makes perfect sense. She deals with the reactions of people to her choice, while still trying to find other ways to overcome her writer’s block and her marital woes.I liked Judy and kept rooting for her to find another way to deal with the stress, something that wouldn’t necessarily make her anxiety so visible, but as time passed, it all made sense. In the end, I loved how she and Gary began to reconnect in new ways. An intriguing portrait of a marriage. 4.5 stars.

You know the people who have "regular lives." They work 9 - 5 jobs for companies with steady paychecks and they got to those jobs through some sort of regular K-12 plus 4, 7, or 10 more. You could set a clock by these people's lives. Then their are people who switch careers a couple of times, go to law school at 34 or 54, and spend time trying on lives like they are in the dressing room at The Loft. There is no clock because time is irrelevant, it's about living a purpose and a legacy and having meaning. The downside of the less-than-regular life is you become Judy Vogel. A simultaneously absurd and believable character who walks around wearing a dog in a baby sling. This notion wasn't covered in my middle school Home Living Course, but I completely understand it now. Amazing little tid-bits about grief and being the sandwich generation (people raising tiny humans while their aging parents need help) that isn't talked about as much in fiction in modern terms for women who also have careers and need to win bread. I wanted to know who the Secret Pooper was. I wanted to see if Judy and Gary ended up staying together. It kept me reading. Yes, it's absurd, I mean who walks around wearing a dog? But it's also very real. Life is what happens when you are making other plans, and there's this amazing line about grief in there about living in the past and being afraid of the future. I'm not going to quote it, you have to read it in the moment and let it speak to you. It's a quick read, a "beach read" if you will. Funny, absurd, and real. You'll be looking at people like they have birds on their heads forever. If I were the author, I wouldn't read these things, but if someone connected with her does read this, thank her for me, I truly enjoyed the journey of reading this book.

So beautiful. Worth reading slowly. I tend to read fast, so I went back and reread chapters so by the time I finished, I’d actually read the book twice.It’s a beautiful angsty poetry-filled anthem for life. I have more highlights than I do in the very best personal growth books. Laura Zigman gets what it is to be a messy human in a way that most people gloss over. I loved it!

Good read, interesting premise . Relationships are complicated but sometimes not so much. Not fond of the “pooper” story line . Everyone needs a dog close to function

Narrative exploration with genius humor - loved it.Very relatable well developed characters.I related to the struggles of middle age she describes - the losses (kids growing up, parents dying, friends moving on or getting sick) that make it hard to trust and difficult to hope. And yet she also captures how real life is just zany enough in the midst of all the loss to surprise us, and change our perspective, and expand our understanding of what is possible.This is a great read on every level. Looking forward to my book club discussion on this one.

Poor Judy Vogel. Fifty years old and recently orphaned, her life is changing faster than she can cope with it, and she feels helpless to control anything. Her teenage son has become sullen and distant, the husband she thinks she wants to divorce can't afford to move out so he's living in the basement, her best friend is dying of cancer, and she's given up on her once-successful writing career. Her first children’s book spawned a PBS series and lifelong fans but the much-promised financial success that was supposed to come along with it never materialized (see: estranged husband living in the basement). She’s no longer an author, she’s a practitioner of “content generation” for the web. Judy’s story has all the makings of a tragedy, but in the hands of the sharp and witty Zigman, it's more poignant and funny than tragic. The added bonus is the parade of zing-worthy cultural touchstones that Zigman introduces and then zings with skillful aplomb: the precious private school whose principal (the “head of school”) refers to his students as “peace pals,” Judy’s husband’s part-time position as a “snackologist,” at a communal workspace in her adopted hometown of Cambridge, Mass., and the phenomenally irritating phony-as-a-three-dollar-bill social media guru Sari Epstein. Epstein’s “Noble Journey” retreat weekend is one of the most ridiculously memorable moments in a book full of them.

At first it seemed as if it was just going to be a funny book about a slightly weird couple behaving rather oddly - after all, why would anyone need to carry their dog around in a baby sling and why indeed would it be any help to them? Well it turned out that Judy has real personal tragedies as well as first world problems to deal with and while many of the events in the book are bizarre, in the end I found it and the characters both funny and likable.

The main character is, at times, very irritating and one wishes to be able to shout at her to het a grip. All in all an interesting portrayal of couple life.

Interesting book to read and insightful