After discussing the super fun time they spent together the week before, Linny and Nancy discuss RETURNS AND EXCHANGES by Kayla Rae Whitaker. This best-seller is the sweeping story of one Kentucky family’s tragicomic rise and fall throughout the 1980s. The plot revolves around parents Fred and Fran, they are the family behind the discount store chain, Baker-Taylor, that is expanding rapidly across the South and Midwest United States. The family values façade of the chain, and the family, starts to crack pretty early with an inter-company affair. Linny and Nancy relished the decade-long story of Fred and Fran’s four kids and their relationship with their parents, siblings, and the company. Both Linda and Nancy enjoyed the epilogue where several years have passed following the cataclysmic events of the story’s end.

Koco’s Pub in Baltimore

Sunrise Soap Company in York

We have a rollicking time with author Molly Fader. Her latest book, LADY X, became available on July 14. Molly is the author of four novels, including THE MCAVOY SISTERS BOOK OF SECRETS which is about two sisters from a small Pennsylvania hometown! Writing under the pseudonym, Molly O’Keefe, Molly Fader is the USA Today Bestselling author of over 50 contemporary romances. And Molly is a podcaster. Her podcast is called Day Drinking with Authors. She interviews authors, and others in the industry, about their recent releases, inspirations, and what’s happening next in publishing. And do it all while having a cocktail. Or three. She says!

We discuss how Molly's love of romance was borne from early tragedy. After a successful career as a romance writer, however, Molly decided she needed to write beyond that genre. It was a painful switch in agenting and publisher.

Molly tracing the inspiration for LADY X, including the incident in which she felt she poorly advised her teenaged daughter who was experiencing harassment.

Nancy reveals where she cried during the story and Linny and Nancy regale Molly with stories of their visits to 1970's New York on unchaperoned high school bus trips.

We talk about powerful men who abuse women and women who fight back. We also talk about how women sometimes enable the abuse of other women.

This is a gritty, realistic, clear-eyed look at female relationships from the 1970's to today. And, all three of us love ally Todd.

Molly’s podcast called DAY DRINKING WITH AUTHORS

Amy Clark’s podcast called the BOOK GANG

Kate Hilton’s CITY OF THE MUSE

The Women’s March in DC

Molly’s Website

It’s a hot summer in 1977. Son of Sam is on the loose and avigilante, Lady X, is meting out justice to abusive men. Linny and Nancy discuss Molly Fader’s new book, LADY X, and the feminine rage three young roommates experience in 1970’s New York. And also, in this dual-timeline book, modern day Margot whose A-list actor husband has been caught sendingcompromising pictures to girls. Ugh. We see women banding together, but this gritty book painfully shows how women also sometimes fail each other. This time, Nancy admits she cried reading the book (usually it’s Linny!). We alsoget updates on Linny’s acting gigs (can you say “speaking roles”?!), and, Nancy’s tennis teams’ trips to Districts and Regionals. In their endeavors, both Linny and Nancy are practicing Dr. Larry Widman’s positive self-talk!

Episode 45. Linda and Nancy discuss MAX OUT MINDSET by Dr.Larry Widman:

https://frontporchbookclub.com/podcast/45-max-out-mindset-by-dr-larry-widman/

Episode 46. Author Dr. Larry Widman supercharges our newyear telling us about his book, MAX OUT MINDSET:

https://frontporchbookclub.com/podcast/46-author-dr-larry-widman/

Episode 127. Linda and Nancy discuss THE MIDNIGHT SHOW:

https://frontporchbookclub.com/podcast/127-the-midnight-show/

Episode 128.  AuthorsLee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne join us to discuss THE MIDNIGHT SHOW:

https://frontporchbookclub.com/podcast/128-lee-kelly-and-jennifer-thorne/

Son of Sam:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berkowitz

1977 New York City blackout:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977

PAIGE REVIEWS BOOKS review of LADY X:

https://paigesmith.net/tag/molly-fader-lady-x/

Today we interview Lindsey Goldstein about her book, GAP YEAR.

One of her early publications was an adorable personal essay she wrote for THE NEW YORK TIMES' Modern Love column:

At the cusp of 40, Lindsey decided there was only gain to try her hand at becoming a novelist. She wrote her first novel in her early 40s. GAP YEAR was her third novel and first published one.

GAP YEAR takes place in Ecuador, where Lindsey has visited and has swum with the penguins and sea lions, just as Jane did in GAP YEAR. Lindsey, like Jane, also had a gap year (traditional one, though!) and stayed in a hostel. We explore other ways Lindsey pulled from her own experiences, including those as a friend, daughter, and mother to bring realism to the novel.

We talk about youthful dreams and the importance of pursuing those that are meaningful to you, even if in just small steps.

Lindsey tells us how other authors have inspired her passions and her writing, including:

Bill Bryson’s A WALK IN THE WOODS

Rebecca Serle’s IN FIVE YEARS

Ashley Poston’s alternate reality books

Linny and Nancy discuss the REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES series and reminisce about how much they loved chatting with author Shelby Van Pelt.

Episode 71: Our review of REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES

Episode 72: Our chat with Shelby Van Pelt, author of REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES

It’s July, so we have a great beach read! It’s a new novel by debut author Lindsay Goldstein. In GAP YEAR, within one evening Jane’s marriage has suddenly ended and her daughter has gone off to Spain for a Gap Year. With the dissolution of her marriage, Jane makes a spontaneous decision to take a gap year of her own and accomplish her lifelong dream of climbing Cotopaxi, the Ecuadoran volcano, and also of visiting the Galapagos Islands. Sounds like a great plan. Except, of course, things don’t go according to plan. This is a fun, funny book that looks at whether it’s possible to recapture the dreams of youth when you’re no longer young. We learn a lot about the Ecuadorian volcano, Cotopaxi, which neither Linny nor Nancy had heard of. In the context of GAP YEAR, we discuss exotic travel dreams, parenting, empty nesting, and friendships.

Our first co-author interview! We meet Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne, the funny and thoughtful authors of THE MIDNIGHT SHOW. These two have great writing chemistry that s evident on the page and in our discussion. They have co-written three previous novels and are also independent authors. We discuss how they came to write together and how their co-writing has evolved over four books. We're thrilled to learn that their first co-written novel, THE ANTIQUITY AFFAIR, features two sisters on an Indiana Jones-type adventure. That book will be added to our TBR lists. We learn how Lee and Jennifer devised and executed the unique, mixed media form of THE MIDNIGHT SHOW. Hot tip: they've played with inserting bits of mixed media since their first novel. In THE MIDNIGHT SHOW, well, they went 100% in and it's fabulous. We discuss some of the challenges working women and women comedians faced back in the day, oh, and still face. We also discuss generational perspectives on these challenges. But we also laugh a lot together. Just four Pennsylvania girls having a great hang on the Front Porch!

Our book this month is called THE MIDNIGHT SHOW and it was written by two authors: Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne. This isn’t a typical novel: the entire book is of the memos, interviews, old news articles, emails, voice mails, and transcripts that our lead character, Madeline Cohen accumulates. Madeline is a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. She pitches a story that will look back to 1980 to the season premiere of The Midnight Show (sort of like a Saturday Night Live sketch show) and explore how funny women, then and now, are commodified or dismissed. She also wants to evaluate how the comedy world contributed to the unsolved death of one of the show’s breakout stars, Lillian Martin. We really liked the format of the book and know the authors had a great time placing the contradictory narratives sequentially, highlighting the complexity of the characters’ perspectives.

We conclude the episode with Nancy’s quiz for Linny about first cast of Saturday Night Live. Linny then turns the tables with her own questions. We also learn about Linny’s first speaking role in her acting gigs.

This episode we interview Jane Park about her debut novel, INHERITANCE. Jane is a second-generation Korean-Canadian writer. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta, lived in New York City for over a decade, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta. INHERITANCE is her debut novel. Linny was excited to identify the similarities of Jane’s life and that of her leading character in INHERITANCE, Anne.

In INHERITANCE, Anne Kim is a disaffected lawyer living a successful life in New York City – a far cry from her impoverished childhood in rural Canada where she faced racism and bullying as a second-generation Korean immigrant. When Anne returns to Canada for her father’s funeral, she must face the relationships and past she thought she had left behind and reckon with who she is.

We talk with Jane, the author of INHERITANCE, about the second-generation immigrant experience, the dark family dysfunction humor that only immigrant kids understand, and the family scripts set forth by Confucianism. We learn about how Holocaust generational trauma literature informed the novel, as well as how Jane worked to prevent her trauma from impacting her own children. Jane also tells us how becoming a mother changed her writing in INHERITANCE and how her interest in God is reflected in the novel.

We hear about Jane's family’s journey to Canada and her journey to becoming a novelist, despite its incongruity with most immigrant families’ desires for children to become doctors or lawyers. Jane tells us about the crucial support she received, financial and artistic, that brought this novel to life. We also learn about her love of fine arts.

And, we now have two Korean words to add to our vocabularies: eunjangdo and ajumma. One controversial; one endearing.

In INHERITANCE, a debut novel by Jane Park, we meet Anne Kim, a successful New York attorney. Anne has returned home to the Canadian prairie to bury her father. Memories of her upbringing as a second-generation Korean immigrant start to crowd Anne, but she finds little help from her mother and brother. Her mother wants her to forget the past. Her brother, dealing with substance abuse issues, wants her financial support. As Anne begins to make sense of the poverty, bullying, and abuse she and her brother endured, she begins to realize her life has been a exercise in making her parents proud, rather than in making her own choices. Nancy and Linny discuss the competing demands Anne faces, the emergence of research about PTSD, and the Korean War.

KATE SCHATZ joins us on the front porch for a rollicking and deeply felt conversation about her novel, WHERE THE GIRLS WERE. She's the New York Times-bestselling author of the RAD WOMEN book series; the novel WHERE THE GIRLS WERE; the 33 ⅓ BOOK RID OF ME: A STORY; and DO THE WORK: AN ANTI-RACIST ACTIVITY BOOK, co-written with “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell. Kate tells us WHERE THE GIRLS WERE was inspired by her mom’s experience of having two unplanned pregnancies in 1960’s San Francisco and being sent to private homes to wait out the pregnancies. Kate had never heard of this practice. Her research eventually led her write this book.

One theme that comes through clearly in WHERE THE GIRLS WERE is the unequal burden women bear from the consequences of unprotected sex. Yet, the book mentions that for as long as there have been sex and babies, women are taking care of each other. Kate did want this truth to be evident in Baker’s story. The care women have taken, has often looked like hiding and secrecy. Kate also didn’t want Wiley to be a jerk. He’s just a dude. But she did want to show he just gets to walk away and continue his life.

Linny also mentions Nancy and her experience in visiting a commune!