Leap Days: Chronicles of a Midlife Move
by Katherine Lanpher
Published by Springboard Press
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Reviewed by Sara Baker
After spending her entire life in the Midwest, Katherine Lanpher decided to make a clean break and move to New York City to host a radio show with Al Franken. Lanpher had already made a name for herself hosting her own show in Minnesota, where she had built an active--if not completely fulfilling--life with close friends and a husband married to the theatre. Ready to start anew after her divorce, Lanpher was understandably reluctant to leave her home, but she was tempted by the idea of a national radio program and a new life in glamorous New York.
Lanpher moved to New York on leap day and makes good use of the metaphor by starting the first chapter with her trapeze lessons, another example of her attempts to open herself up to new things, no matter how scary they may be. Throughout the book, Lanpher describes her initiation into big city life: hailing and keeping a cab, cooking for one, befriending the local butcher. Her writing is candid, and she expresses an emptiness that anyone who has ever left home can understand.
In addition to her homesickness, Lanpher finds herself feeling remarkably insecure around the gaggles of young, beautiful women on every street corner. Both of these feelings Lanpher leave her wondering if she can ever fit in. Fortunately, she has a few friends to keep her connected to the frantic world around her, each one willing to dole out advice.
But Leap Days isn't just about Lanpher's life in New York. It's also about the things that have made her the person she is today: the strength and love of her parents, the sudden death of her brother, the struggle to be a serious journalist when men controlled the field, the end of a marriage but subsequential rebirth of a lifelong friendship. Lanpher examines her life thus far, accepting both the good and the bad of what got her there. And then she considers where she is going, knowing only that she has gotten closer to becoming a New Yorker and farther from the life she left behind.
Armchair Interviews says: Good story of a Midwesterner's move to NYC!