Kate Weinberg on the kindness of women & living with a mother-shaped hole

Today’s guest is a personal favourite. I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help. Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks in large part to her I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to experience and long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman. 

That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston!

I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at 3 and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers, her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including There's Nothing Wrong With her by Kate Weinberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices