What would it take
for you to kill your
best friends?
The Murderess
Events:
November 16, 5-7 PM PST
Online Murderess Book Party
Sign up below! I will mail out the Zoom link the day prior with reminder emails. Come join me for a reading, Q&A, discussion and this dorky little movie I made.
Would love to see you there!
Ruth Judd
Murderess
Kirkus Reviews
A mysterious young woman becomes the focal point of a true-crime novel about a grisly, Depression-era crime of passion. When Los Angeles train station authorities force open two leaking, putrid-smelling trunks, the dismembered female bodies they find horrify them. Yet what leaves them especially aghast is the idea that Ruth Judd, the pretty young woman who presents a claim ticket for the trunks, could possibly be involved in what clearly appears to be murder. Notaro carefully reconstructs the Depression-era period in which this real-life crime took place and presents a sympathetic portrayal of Ruth, who manages to walk out of the baggage claim but is quickly identified as a suspect. In the narrative that follows the bodies’ discovery, Notaro alternates a chronicle of the hunt for Ruth with sections told from her point of view that reveal her motivations.
As complex as it is deftly crafted—weaving newspaper accounts and letters written by the real-life Ruth within a compelling fictional web—this is a pulse-pounding, page-turning, heartbreaking account of the misunderstood woman behind a sensational news story that gripped a nation.
A haunting novel that never lets the reader go.
Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson
Agnes “Anne”
LeRoi
Library Journal
(Starred review): Notaro (Excuse Me While I Disappear), perhaps best known for her humorous essays, has expertly crafted a work of historical true crime fiction. The narrative and imagined dialogue align seamlessly with the hard facts and documented truths surrounding Winnie Ruth Judd, the notorious doctor’s wife accused of murdering and dismembering two of her closest friends. In October of 1931, Winnie Ruth arrives at the Los Angeles train station from Phoenix, where her trunks are discovered to contain the dismembered remains of Anne LeRoi and Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson. What follows is her pursuit and eventual capture, fantastical tales of jealousy and insanity, and a legendary trial of the century. This novel inspired by true events asks: if the polite, petite, refined daughter of a pastor and wife of a doctor can commit such a terrible crime, what lies dormant in any woman, ready to spill over when met with mistreatment and misjudgment?
Read more about The Murderess.
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What happened that October night in the bungalow in 1931?
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Photos
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Coming in November!
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Item description
Laurie Notaro
Writer. Terrible typist. Antagonist. Loud-mouthed girl.
At your service.
Excuse Me While I Disappear
Little A, 2022, 255 pages
A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife.
Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn’t end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair’s root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything).
Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting―the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries―Laurie accepts it. And then some. With unintentional abandon, she shoplifts a bag of russet potatoes. Heckles a rude driver from her beat-up Prius. And engages in epic trolling on Nextdoor.com. That, says Laurie, is the brilliance of growing older. With each passing day, you lose an equivalent amount of fear.
And the #1 New York Times bestselling author has never been so fearlessly funny as she is in this empowering, candid, and enlightening memoir about living life on the other side of fifty.
My first online review: *** (out of five)
“Some chapters and stories are laugh - out - loud; some are quirky or somewhat serious. All very relatable, and 4-5 stars were in mind for quite a while. Loss down to 3 as I just don't have an appreciation for gratuitous potty mouth; and while I feel I have a decent sense of humor, a couple stories went too far.”—some asshole lady who also lives in Oregon
Collect Them All!
Collect Them All!
Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra.
Laurie tries painfully to make the transition from all-night partyer and bar-stool regular to mortgagee with plumbing problems and no air-conditioning. Laurie finds grown-up life just as harrowing as her reckless youth.
Here are more scathingly funny tales from the wild side! Laurie Notaro survived the debauched ride of her twenties and the bumpy road to matrimony. Now she’s ready to take on the thirtysomething years . . . and almost middle age has never been more hilarious.
Laurie Notaro isn’t exactly a domestic goddess—unless that means she fully embraces her genetic hoarding predisposition, sneaks peeks at her husband’s daily journal, or has made a list of the people she wants on her Apocalypse Survival team (her husband’s not on it). Notaro chronicles her chronic misfortune in the domestic arts, including cooking, cleaning, and putting on Spanx while sweaty (which should technically qualify as an Olympic sport).
“It's 1927. For English heiress Elsie Mackay, wealthy society widow Mabel Boll, and Ruth Elder, the thrill of being the first woman to cross the Atlantic in the air is deemed worth risking their lives for. Notaro portrays this exciting sliver of time with historical accuracy, providing an authentic glimpse of the era (including photographs), and then adds a pump of adrenaline by including dialogue and drama of her own imagination, creating a captivating historical fiction.
Be prepared to hold tight as you're boosted into the cockpit for a two-day flight across the horizon. The odds of making it are against you—but what a ride!” —Kirkus Reviews
She thought she’d have more time. Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no–it’s happened. She has officially lost her marbles. Her cranky side seems to have eaten the rest of her–inner-thigh Chub Rub and all. And the results are breathtaking.
It’s the most wonderful–and most dreadful–season of the year, when boxes of truffles attack your thighs, drunken holiday revelers stay long past their welcome, and your grandmother has conniptions at the department store over the price of hand lotion. Welcome to Laurie Notaro’s Christmastime.
Join Notaro as she experiences the popular phenomenon of laser hair removal; bemoans the scourge of the Open Mouth Coughers on America’s airplanes and in similarly congested areas; welcomes the newest ex-con (yay, a sex offender!) to her neighborhood;
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Everyone’s favorite Idiot Girl, is just trying to find the right fit, whether it’s in the adorable blouse that looks charming on the mannequin but leaves her in a literal bind or in her neighborhood after she’s shamefully exposed at a holiday party by delivering a low-quality rendition of “Jingle Bells.” Notaro makes misstep after riotous misstep as she shares tales of marriage and family.
Trying to avoid being trapped on earth for all eternity, Lucy crosses the line between life and death and back again when she returns home. Navigating the perilous channels of the paranormal, she’s determined to find out why her life crumbled and why, despite her ghastly death, no one seems to have noticed she’s gone. But urgency on the spectral plane—in the departed person of her feisty grandmother, requires attention, and Lucy realizes that you get only one chance to be spectacular in death.
Pinterest. Foodies. Anne Frank’s underwear. New York Times bestselling author Laurie Notaro—rightfully hailed as “the funniest writer in the solar system” (The Miami Herald)—spares nothing and no one, least of all herself, in this uproarious new collection of essays on rudeness. With the sardonic, self-deprecating wit that makes us all feel a little better about ourselves for identifying with her, Laurie explores her recent misadventures and explains why it’s not her who is nuts, it’s them (and okay, sometimes it’s her too).
Vintage, previously unreleased essays from #1 New York Times best-seller Laurie Notaro. Enter Pirates revisits the days when there were no hangovers, paychecks were blown in one night and a vacation meant crowding 15 of your closest friends into one motel room. These are the salad days; you didn't make enough to pay taxes and blackouts probably weren't worth remembering anyway. Hailing reckless youth, the vintage writings of #1 New York Times best-seller (It Looked Different on the Model, 7/14) Laurie Notaro recalls the moments when legends are born and where checkered pasts are created.
