Lisa Kogan is a 49-year-old single woman who maintains that every human being deserves a great mattress, a comfortable pair of shoes, and a very smart shrink-and that no one has grown a decent tomato since 1963. She used to think the world wasn't all that complicated, but along came AIDS and crack and Rush Limbaugh, and she had to grow up. Still, she's nostalgic for that time when you had to walk across a room to change channels and there was no such thing as a spy satellite capable of spotting a pre-cancerous mole on her inner thigh.
In SOMEONE WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY, Kogan grapples with issues big (her 7-year-old daughter, Julia, and the 8,000 miles that separate them from Julia's father) and small (her recent apartment renovation, which consisted of turning over the sofa cushions, and then realizing that they looked better the other way) with the self-deprecating humor-and deep appreciation for what really matters-that have made her so beloved by her legions of fans. Here is a book for everyone who has ever been frightened by superstores, lunch meat, or ambivalent men (not necessarily in that order), but believes that life is a fragile bit of luck well worth living.
Advance Praise for Someone Will Be With You Shortly
“Her wry observations of everyday life will hearten you on your worst days, validate you on your best, and make you laugh any day at all. Buy it, if not to keep Lisa writing, then as an investment in your own happiness. God knows you deserve one fail-safe investment.”
— Martha Beck, author of Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star
“Lisa Kogan has a singularly humane stance as she makes comic sense of the annoying and baffling facts of life. The inventor of ‘the dessert potato’ has made me laugh for years—she's been a comfort, too.”
— Amy Hempel, author of The Collected Stories
"Lisa Kogan might just be the Erma Bombeck of our generation. Sassy, blunt, and so damn true."
— Kelly Corrigan, author of The Middle Place and LIFT
“Lisa Kogan is the intellectual and creative love child of Noel Coward and Loretta Lynn. Someone Will Be With You Shortly is a hilarious, honest and tender chronical of everyday life as most of us really live it. Lisa Kogan sings all the right grace notes with absolutely perfect pitch.”
— Amy Dickinson, author of The Mighty Queens of Freeville
"Lisa Kogan's Someone Will Be with You Shortly is a delectable blend of wit, whimsy, pith, and poignancy. If David Sedaris were a girl (who'd had her pocket book licked by a stranger on Lexington Avenue) this is the book he'd write."
- Evan Handler, actor and author of It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive
“I admit it. I’m a big, drooling Lisa Kogan groupie. I’d read the ingredients on a cereal box if I thought she’d written them. She is funny, wise, compelling, loveable, fallible…So a whole book by her? What heaven!!”
Peggy Orenstein, author of Waiting for Daisy