Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives? [Paperback]

Sara Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 26, 2008

Thirty years ago, Sara Davidson wrote the phenomenal bestseller Loose Change, the definitive book about the boomer generation’s coming-of-age. Now this witty social observer has again turned her discerning eye to her contemporaries, with Leap!, a no-holds-barred, illuminating, and hopeful look at the choices and challenges we face and the roads open to us.

For many years Davidson earned a living as a successful journalist and screenwriter, but in her fifties she saw her life come apart: She could no longer find work, she endured a break-up with her partner, and her children left for college. For the first time ever, she had nothing to do. She felt adrift, but she found that she was not alone.

In Leap!, Davidson sets out on a passionate quest to learn how to do the coming years well. Drawing on her own experience and that of others, she explores such questions as

• How does a high-powered person learn to walk down the ladder gracefully?
• How can women continue to be sensual and not touch-deprived?
• How do we arrange to grow old with our friends?
• What will be the fire at the center of our lives?
• Why are we still here?

Davidson interviews people from across the country and from all walks of life, including such icons as Carly Simon, Tom Hayden, Tracy Kidder, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, and Iman, as well as teachers, writers, psychologists, businesspeople, and spiritual leaders. The candid portraits are both inspiring and cautionary.

True to character, boomers will approach these years differently from previous generations, and there will be no single path. Some will feel free for the first time to take risks; others will embark upon a spiritual search; some will want to give back, to make the world a better place; others will want to play or make creativity a priority. But they will not fade quietly into the sunset.

With Leap!, Sara Davidson holds up a mirror for readers, allowing them to see not only themselves and those around them but their potential future. With Davidson as a guide, the possibilities are boundless.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The subtitle's question is posed to baby boomers; the author's answers offer an array of arresting possibilities. Davidson, whose book Loose Change tracked three '60s Berkeley radicals, interviews well-known men and women as well as ordinary citizens and deals with such subjects as sex in the age of Cialis, finding work that expresses your purpose in life, finding a community to grow old with and finding a spiritual path. Davidson weaves in her own story, contrasting her decision to remain a writer with Marcia Seligson's midlife choice to give up a writing career to found a musical theater. Some of the "leaps" represent spiritual transformation, such as how Sally Kempton left the ashram where she had been a disciple of Swami Muktananda for 27 years and adopted a new life of teaching and writing. Davidson compares the late marriage of Gloria Steinem at age 66 with Jane Fonda's ability to finally live without a man after her divorce from Ted Turner. Many of Davidson's subjects are from her own social circles, so her book won't apply to everyone. But her engaging and provocative anecdotes will inspire hope and creative thinking about the future in many readers. (Feb. 20)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Sara Davidson is the author of bestsellers Loose Change, Real Property, and Cowboy, and is a Golden Globe nominated writer for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. She is a contributing editor of O, The Oprah Magazine and writes regularly for the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and Rolling Stone. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Renee Raudman is a multi-award-winning audiobook narrator. A multiple Audie Award nominee, she has earned a number of AudioFile Earphones Awards, including for The Last Secret by Mary McGarry Morris and Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien, as well as a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award for Joe Schreiber's Chasing the Dead. She has also performed on film, TV, radio, and stage, including the recurring roles of Jordon on ABC's One Life To Live, Phyllis on NBC's Passions, and guest-starring roles on prime-time TV. She has been heard in cartoons (The Simpsons, Billy & Mandy), videogames, and on the E! channel. Her narration of Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper was selected by Library Journal as one of the best audiobooks of 2009, and her reading of Marthe Jocelyn's Would You was selected by the ALA as one of the best young adult audiobooks of 2009.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 321 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345478096
• ISBN-13: 978-0345478092
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5.1 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Welcome! If you'd like to read an excerpt from Leap!, please visit my website, www.saradavidson.com. You can also get a free Leap! Workbook.

Now for the BIO:

Sara Davidson first captured America's imagination with her international best seller, "Loose Change," about three women growing up in the Sixties.

Sara grew up in California and went to Berkeley in the Sixties, where the rite of passage was to "get stoned, get laid and get arrested."

After Berkeley she headed for New York to attend the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her first job was with the Boston Globe, where she became a national correspondent, covering everything from the election campaigns of Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon to the Woodstock Festival and the student strike at Columbia.

Returning to New York, she worked as a free-lance journalist for magazines ranging from Harpers, Esquire and the New York Times to Rolling Stone. She was one of the group who developed the craft of literary journalism, combining the techniques of fiction with rigorous reporting to bring real events and people to life. Her work is collected in the textbook, "The Literary Journalists," by Norman Sims.

Sara moved back to California where for 25 years, she alternated between writing for television and writing books. The books tend to fall in the gray zone between memoir and fiction. She uses the voice of the intimate journalist, drawing on material from her life and that of others and shaping it into a narrative that reads like fiction.

In television, she created two drama series, "Jack and Mike," and "Heart Beat," which ran on A.B.C. She was later co-executive producer of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," wrote hundreds of hours of drama episodes, movies and miniseries, and in 1994 was nominated for a Golden Globe.

In the year 2000, her life began to unravel. She was divorced, her children were leaving for college and she couldn't find work in television. Following her intuition, knowing nobody, she drove to Boulder, Colorado for three months to be a visiting writer at the University of Colorado. She never drove back, and is piecing together a different life which she writes about in Leap!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 93 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great writing on an important subject February 20, 2007

By John Zxerce

Format:Hardcover

Davidson's `Leap' is essentially about what we do after work and before death. She answers with an array of loosely attached anecdotal answers showing the tenuous relationship between the success and wealth of baby-boomers and the ideals they experienced and held in the 1960's.

Her discussion on aging seems to settle for the more Oprah-friendly answers of - "Don't fight it. Get used to it. Accept and embrace it. Take care of your health and sanity." Of course she writes in a more engaging style and as a result her words aren't nearly as blandly stated. At the same time I wanted more substance, significance, and deeper answers - those she's found to be true about the human condition, beauty, morality, and life.

She writes, "I can't sleep either. I fall asleep but wake at 2 a.m., shaking with fear. What am I supposed to do for the next 30 years? I've raised my kids, written best sellers, had deep love ... Why am I still here?"

That is the ultimate question, and in asking this question one faces what Davidson calls `going through the narrows'.

She goes on to say, "While there's no single route through the narrows, I can tell you that there's sunlight and air at the other side. What became clear for me may be utterly different than for you. I've talked with a man who's building a hospital in Uganda, a woman who's becoming a nun at 50, a couple who are adopting a child at 61. Others have a passion to live near their families and play golf."

My question is, "Is there no hierarchy in our choices?" She seems to suggest that all decisions are equally valid. You can play golf, watch tv, help the homeless - whatever works for you. I'm not sure if I buy this. Certainly a diversity of involvement in life can result in a well-rounded person. However, aren't some pursuits more worthwhile, more rewarding, and more fulfilling? If we are here for a reason, then what is that reason and how do I best live my life in light of that reason? What I mean is, if we're here for a purpose then should we seek to fulfill that purpose? This is what I wish Davidson had asked.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A healing message for those in grief May 19, 2007

By S. Kayton

Format:Hardcover

Sara Davidson may not have been aware when she wrote Leap! that it would not only be a guide for aging baby boomers, but also a healing message for those in grief.

Let me explain. I was intrigued by the Newsweek review of the book, and bought it in March shortly after it came out. However, I didn't read it right away. I have a high stress Silicon Valley job that leaves little time for reading books. "I'll get to it when I get a chance," I told myself.

Regrettably, in the past month, I have had that chance. I've been on leave from my job since mid-April, when my 22-year old son drowned in a boating accident. Among other grief counseling, I have read "grief" related books people recommended -- but they were not terribly satisfactory.

So over the last week, I picked up Leap! from my stack of unread books, and read it. Leap! has done more to focus my mind on what to do under these tragic circumstances than almost all, if not all, of the other things I have done. At a minimum, I am thinking about quitting my job (I can afford to) and live life as Davidson has suggested. My son's premature death has shown me that life is too short and uncertain to do anything else.

So many thanks to Sara Davidson for writing something that, inadvertenly or not, has been a true inspiration and source of comfort.

(This review written by Sue Kayton's husband using her account.)

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars I know lots of famous people! July 10, 2007

By Bee VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Poor Sara. She is baffled by the rejection that keeps coming her way. No one wants to buy her self-described "edgy" screenplay that features "a lovable and loyal bloodhound that gets its throat cut while its owner is forced to watch." When she arrives in India a week late for a brief "volunteer vacation" during which she whines about the conditions and sneaks away to a luxury hotel to take a hot shower, she can't understand why the other volunteers want nothing to do with her.

Her attempt to find answers about how to deal with her failures is to interview her large cadre of successful friends and acquaintances. She reassures the reader of each person's worth by listing their accomplishments as well as any famous people with whom they may have worked. Wow! Sara knows someone who used to work for a once-famous entertainer! Sara was once married to a man whose father wrote hit musicals in the thirties! She talked to a plastic surgeon who "will not confirm or deny" that he has worked on famous singers! She knows someone who was once a staff writer for a sitcom! Even the never-famous high school English teacher "taught literature at one of the most rigorous schools in Manhattan." Pity the poor teachers who teach at the less rigorous schools. This book has little use for them. Most of the people interviewed in this book have found at least a modicum of wealth and fame in some artistic endeavor, and Davidson spares the reader little detail as she describes each person's tremendous physical attractiveness and gorgeous, expensive residence.

This book beautifully illustrates the kind of self-absorbed, self-important, self-centered perspective that makes Americans so beloved around the world. Davidson writes about being drawn to relocating to Costa Rica because it "has buzz" as well as free health care paid for by native people described as "cheap labor" and "nonconfrontational." Does a formerly famous baby boomer deserve anything less?

Finally, as other reviewers have mentioned, Davidson takes great pains to point out that dedicating time and effort to helping the needy is no more worthy than maximizing one's own artistic fulfillment. In fact, the entire subtext of this book suggests the latter is a far more noble accomplishment.

But don't take my word for it. Read the review in the New York Times. I've been told it's a very well-regarded publication.