Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem

Description

A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife. Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn't end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair's root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything). Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting-the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries-Laurie accepts it. And then some. With unintentional abandon, she shoplifts a bag of russet potatoes. Heckles a rude driver from her beat-up Prius. And engages in epic trolling on Nextdoor.com. That, says Laurie, is the brilliance of growing older. With each passing day, you lose an equivalent amount of fear. And the #1 New York Times bestselling author has never been so fearlessly funny as she is in this empowering, candid, and enlightening memoir about living life on the other side of fifty.

Laurie Notaro is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the humor memoirs The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, a finalist for the Thurber Prize, and Housebroken, among others. She is also the author of three works of fiction, including the historical novel Crossing the Horizon. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, Arizona, where she created something of a checkered past. Laurie now resides in Eugene, Oregon, has a cute dog and a nice husband, and misses Mexican food like it was her youth.

Praise for Excuse Me While I Disappear "Witty and full of sarcastic energy, the author fearlessly tackles what it means to get old...Unplugged, refreshingly off the hook, and consistently entertaining." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Notaro's fans who've aged right alongside her will feel like they're on a call with a best friend." -Publishers Weekly "Though her hair is gray and she's getting junk mail from mortuaries, with every passing day she grows a little less afraid." -USA Today "This author shows it's hard work to make it to 50, but she is here to help readers transition from adult to older adult with sage advice, raucous laughs, and just the right amount of potty-mouthed language...Fans of Annabelle Gurwitch and Helen Ellis will likely enjoy this book as well, plus laugh out loud at this candid comedy of errors and older people." -Library Journal "Conversational and laugh-out-loud funny, Excuse Me While I Disappear feels like hearing stories from your best friend. Longtime fans will be thrilled to hear more from the author, and Notaro may bring in new fans with her frank discussion of aging as a Gen Xer." -Booklist Praise for Laurie Notaro "If Laurie Notaro's books don't inspire pants-wetting fits of laughter, then please consult your physician because clearly your funny bone is broken." -Jane Lancaster "Hilarious, fabulously improper, and completely relatable, Notaro is the queen of funny." -Celia Rivenbark "Whenever I pick up a book by Laurie Notaro, I know I'll be in a good mood soon. Because Laurie Notaro makes me laugh. Period." -Meg Cabot "Pure, unexpurgated Notaro...again, she turns on the truth serum and the results are once more riotously funny." -San Antonio Express-News "For pure laugh-out-loud, then read-out-loud fun, it's hard to beat this humor writer." -New Orleans Times-Picayune "[Notaro] may be the funniest writer in this solar system." -Miami Herald