The bestselling debut collection by essayist Mary Laura Philpott asks: What happens after you check off all the boxes on your successful life’s to-do list and realize you might need to reinvent the list—and yourself?
Excerpted in The New York Times
Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered
Finalist for the Southern Book Prize
Highlighted on must-read or most-anticipated lists from Newsweek, BuzzFeed, Town & Country, theSkimm, ELLE Australia, Lit Hub, Southern Living, Bustle, The Millions, BookRiot, Garden & Gun, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Review of Books, and more
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I Miss You When I Blink
“There aren’t many books that have made me tear up from both laughing and crying — on the same page. Mary Laura Philpott establishes that there can be many ‘yous,’ among them the childhood you, the single you, the married you, the parent you, the career you. Through sometimes painful, often funny, and always heartwarming self-reflective stories, she shows readers that one of you doesn’t have to give way for another — that your many “yous” can coexist as ‘a crowd of selves.’”
NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019
“Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. The one book you should read right now.”
“I’ve spent my adult life prowling bookshelves for the modern day reincarnation of my favorite authors — Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr and Laurie Colwin — all rolled into one. It’s a tall order. These writers were masters of spinning extraordinary stories from life’s ordinary details. They were the sisterhood of thinking locally and writing globally. Good news: I have finally found their successor. Her name is Mary Laura Philpott. Like her literary forebears, Philpott has an eye for detail… But her real gift lies in making the connection between the small moments and the big ones, so you feel you’ve walked into a complicated, glittering web by the time you finish I Miss You When I Blink.”
“I Miss You When I Blink is about all of the lives we can lead, all of the people we can be, all of the decisions we can make and unmake and then make again throughout our lives — and it’s about the passage of time: unyielding, unforgiving, yet ultimately hopeful.”
Bustle
“In this charming memoir in essays, Philpott offers to a pep talk to anyone who ‘has it all,’ but still feels hollow. At once a love letter to Type-A people everywhere and a gentle reminder that it’s okay (necessary, even) to change, this full-hearted book is a warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly.“
