Linda Holmes, "Evvie Drake Starts Over"

Linda Holmes, of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, discusses her debut novel, "Evvie Drake Starts Over", at Politics and Prose.

Holmes, beloved host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, makes her fiction debut with a sweet and quirky romantic comedy. Set in Maine, it follows two people whose lives seem to be in suspended animation. Evvie, recently widowed, has turned into a recluse. Baseball player Dean Tenney, visiting his friend Andy, is on hiatus from his stalled pitching career. When he moves into the apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two agree not to ask any questions, but soon their tentative friendship blossoms into something more. Before they can make any commitments, however, both need to face the secrets, broken bonds, and other demons that had them in lock-down in the first place.

Holmes is in conversation with Barrie Hardymon, Senior Editor at NPR's Weekend Edition and frequent panelist for Pop Culture Happy Hour.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for National Public Radio and the host of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which has held sold-out live shows in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and elsewhere. She appears regularly on NPR’s radio shows, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. Before NPR, she wrote for New York magazine online and for TV Guide, as well as for the influential website Television Without Pity. In her free time, she watches far too many romantic comedies, bakes bread, watches her nephews get taller, and recently knitted her first hat.

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Produced by Tom Warren