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Ladyparts cover art

Ladyparts

By: Deborah Copaken
Narrated by: Deborah Copaken
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Summary

A frank, witty, and dazzlingly written memoir of one woman trying to keep it together while her body falls apart — from the “brilliant mind” (Michaela Coel, creator of I May Destroy You) behind Shutterbabe

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Real Simple • “The most laugh-out-loud story of resilience you’ll ever read and an essential road map for the importance of narrative as a tool of healing.” (Lori Gottlieb, best-selling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone)

I’m crawling around on the bathroom floor, picking up pieces of myself. These pieces are not a metaphor. They are actual pieces.

Twenty years after her iconic memoir Shutterbabe, Deborah Copaken is at her darkly comedic nadir: battered, broke, divorcing, dissected, and dying — literally — on sexism’s battlefield as she scoops up what she believes to be her internal organs into a glass container before heading off to the hospital...in an UberPool.

Ladyparts is Copaken’s irreverent inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, the story of one woman brought to her knees by the one-two-twelve punch of divorce, solo motherhood, healthcare Frogger, unaffordable childcare, shady landlords, her father’s death, college tuitions, sexual harassment, corporate indifference, ageism, sexism, and plain old bad luck. Plus seven serious illnesses, one atop the other, which provide the book’s narrative skeleton: vagina, uterus, breast, heart, cervix, brain, and lungs. Copaken bounces back from each bum body part, finds workarounds for every setback — she transforms her home into a commune to pay rent, sells her soul for health insurance, turns FBI informant when her sexual harasser gets a presidential appointment — but in her slippery struggle to survive a steep plunge off the middle-class ladder, she is suddenly awoken to what it means to have no safety net.

Side-splittingly funny one minute, a freak horror show the next, quintessentially American throughout, Ladyparts is an era-defining memoir.

©2021 Deborah Copaken (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“The most laugh-out-loud story of resilience you’ll ever read and an essential road map for the importance of narrative as a tool of healing: How we tell our stories is just as important - if not more so - as the plot twists we experience.” (Lori Gottlieb, best-selling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone)

Ladyparts is, quite simply, a beautiful book. Equal part harrowing and hilarious, enraging and heartwarming, it’s a memoir unlike any other. It will open your eyes to what it means to be female in a male world, older in a society built around youth worship - or just on the wrong side of variance when the lottery of genes and life doesn’t turn in your favor. And it will do it all while making you laugh, cry, and scream in turn. I couldn’t put it down.” (Maria Konnikova, The New York Times best-selling author of The Biggest Bluff and The Confidence Game)

Ladyparts is a first-rate example of the contemporary memoir: harrowing, sad, funny, revelatory, true. Were you to misconstrue the title, you might think this was all simply anatomy, which would be fine, but as with all the best memoirs what this work really anatomizes is how it all feels - in the mind, in the soul, and in the nick of time. Copaken’s memoir is poignant, necessary, and very rewarding.” (Rick Moody, author of The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony)

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Terrific

Deborah Copaken is an incredible writer and raconteur. Was totally gripped by this memoir although it’s not for the squeamish. More than anything it’s an indictment of the American healthcare system and the hardship it inflicts on freelance creatives.

Felt incredibly grateful for the NHS after reading this book.

At other points I did want to give the author a stern pep talk because she does keep making the same mistakes over and over again. At times it’s a groundhog day of bad jobs and even worse men. The husband who over the course of several hours is too lazy to go and get her something to eat when she’s starving after major surgery is unbelievably awful.

But despite all that it’s never a downer, it’s a great read.

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The things I have learnt

Wow, this is an amazing story, a real story full of tears and joy and hurt and happiness; but most of all this tells of hope in our unjust world where sometimes no matter what miracles we work life consists of just the worst. I learnt about the crazy American health system first hand via these amazing words … OMG we are beyond lucky with our NHS (listen to this if you every feel grumpy about wait times this puts everything into perspective); I learnt about the power that lies in every woman’s body no matter the trials it must endure. Highly recommend but be prepared to weep and laugh and learn. To Deborah, thank you for sharing your story, it is a treasure. Well told.

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