If you don't already follow Barb Taub, this early reflection on whether or not to continue her blog might be a good place to e-meet her:
The title was a joke. Taub is one of the funnier writers in English today, and her blog and social media have been working for her for these twelve and a half years.
Another joke was the title of her retrospective comedy collection, Life Begins When the Kids Leave Home and the Dog Dies. It was "mom-com," about those moments in parenthood that become funny when they stop being infuriating. Reading it, I immediately recognized the heir to Erma Bombeck. Chortle for chortle; laugh out loud for laugh out loud.
So why did Bombeck's books sit at the top of the bestsellers lists for more than a year after each one was printed, while it's possible that you've never heard of Taub? I think the answer is trends. Publishers haven't been trying to market mom-com, or anything else that pertains to or might conceivably encourage parenthood, in recent years. Hello? Publishers are mostly found in New York City. People don't have to spend a lot of time there to find that their ideal of the perfect wife, or daughter, or female friend has become a mildly child-phobic yuppie, possibly a lesbian, or--because the nesting urge has been known to strike lesbians--a gender-dysphoric woman who's had herself spayed and likes to be referred to as "he" or "they."
But chill. Taub had children, in the past. She and her husband stayed close to the children and have adopted other dogs, but their years of adding to the population are safely over. The husband's job took him to the UK and Taub started writing about the expatriate experience as only the well paid know it. They lived in castles. She could afford yearly get-togethers with old school friends...in India.
This web site raved not only over Life Begins but over Oh My Dog, which is mostly a reminiscence about living through the COVID panic with the dog Peri. Anyone who likes either humor or dogs needs this book. That some individual chapters were drafted on Taub's blog is gravy. But yes. The blog is where you get to read the first publishable drafts of parts of some great humorous essays. You will laugh at both book and blog...even though you may shed a tear at the inevitable aging and death of Peri.
Taub is a Democrat and occasionally cracks a political joke, but never a really hateful one; her husband is a Republican. Mostly she's a writer of warmhearted funny stories and essays. R readers can enjoy her blog and books.
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