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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Ep. 68: Eilene Zimmerman (Author of Smacked: A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy) + Book Recommendations

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Bookrecommendations, Bookpodcasts, Sarahsbookshelvespodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslivepodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslive, Bookpodcast, Literarypodcast, Whatshouldiread, Arts, Bookreviewpodcast, Reading, Readingpodcast, Books, Sarahsbookshelves

4.9 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 68, Eilene Zimmerman (author of Smacked) shares how she decided to go public with her experience discovering her ex-husband was addicted to drugs, her research into addiction in the legal profession, and how Peter’s death shaped Eilene’s life now.

This post contains affiliate links, through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

Highlights

  • How Eilene went from not divulging the real reason Peter died beyond a very small circle of friends and family to writing a memoir about her experience.
  • How her kids have been doing since Smacked was published.
  • How Peter’s law firm reacted to the NYT article and the book’s publication.
  • When Eilene believes Peter first started using.
  • What it was like for Eilene to go through this as Peter’s ex-wife (rather than as his wife).
  • Why she started missing Peter after he passed away (even though they’d been split up for quite awhile).
  • Addiction in the legal profession and the toxic culture of BigLaw.
  • Eilene’s journalism career and how Peter’s addiction and death shaped her journalism career moving forward.
  • Smacked being optioned for film by Elisabeth Moss’ production company.

Eilene’s Book Recommendations [30:38]

Two OLD Books She Loves

Two NEW Books She Loves

One Book She DIDN’T LOVE

One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About

Last 5 Star Book Eilene Read [46:54]

Other Books Mentioned

Other Links

About Eilene

Website | Instagram

Eilene Zimmerman is a journalist and social worker. For three decades, she has written about business, technology and social issues for a wide array of national magazines and newspapers. She was a columnist for The New York Times Sunday Business section for six years and since 2004 has been a regular contributor to the newspaper. In September 2020, Zimmerman completed a masters degree in social work.

Next Episode

There will not be a new episode next week since the podcast is on a bi-weekly schedule.

The following week, there will be a full length episode featuring Peace Adzo Medie, author of His Only Wife (airing October 28).

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of the blog Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week I'm

0:15.5

talking with one bookish guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, one book they don't love, and one new

0:22.7

release they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a bit snarky about all things

0:28.3

books. If you like the show, I'd really love your support. Spread the word to your reader friends,

0:33.8

subscribe to the show, rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts, or get bonus podcast episodes

0:40.8

by supporting the podcast on Patreon. There's a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio to my

0:47.5

Patreon page. Let's get rolling. Hey everyone, welcome to a full-length episode of Sarah's Bookshelves Live. A couple months ago, I listened to a five-star

0:57.3

audiobook. And while this may not seem like newsworthy information to you all, it is for me because I rarely

1:04.9

rate an audiobook five stars just because I have kind of a hard time becoming engrossed in something

1:10.8

via my ears. I'm more of a

1:13.3

visual person. But this one absolutely knocked my socks off. And that book is Smacked, a story of

1:19.1

white collar ambition, addiction, and tragedy by Eileen Zimmerman. I listened to it in two days,

1:24.7

which is fast for me on audio. and I'm still thinking about it today.

1:29.0

So I'm thrilled that Eileen Zimmerman is joining me today. She is a journalist and social worker.

1:35.1

For three decades, she has written about business technology and social issues for a wide array of

1:39.9

national magazines and newspapers. She was a columnist for the New York Times Sunday business section

1:44.8

for six years, and since 2004 has been a regular contributor to the newspaper. And just this month,

1:51.0

she completed a master's degree in social work. Congratulations, by the way, on that. And welcome,

1:56.2

Eileen. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I'm so glad to talk to you. My friend Catherine,

2:02.7

who is another blogger, she's the one who told me to listen to you, Smacked. Oh, thanks to

2:08.4

Catherine. Yes, thanks to Catherine. And I'm so glad I did. And she and I still talk about it. And this was,

2:13.1

I listened to it a couple months ago. So flattering. Thank you. So for those listeners who have not yet

...

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