Ep 764 - Waist Deep, by Linea Maja Ernst

**Craig Getting** (0:00)
Andrew, this episode is brought to you in part by Mint Mobile. When we were kids, summer meant freedom. No more homework, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. But as adults, summer still means freedom, thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint Mobile's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited, so free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and their gotchas and their dirty looks, and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Andrew, you use Mint Mobile.

**Andrew Cunningham** (0:31)
I do use Mint Mobile, not just in the summer, but in all the seasons. It has provided me good, reliable, and inexpensive cellular telephone service, and I have not thought about switching since we switched to it.

**Craig Getting** (0:44)
Because you know that with your high-speed data, you get unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network, and if you switch today, you can even bring your current phone and number with you. So to get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com/overdue.
That's mintmobile.com/overdue.
Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com/overdue. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees, extra, initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabyte. May slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot, and a scalable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. cementmobile.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:35)
This is a HeadGum Podcast.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:39)
While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus these are books you should have read by now.

**Craig Getting** (2:13)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

**Andrew Cunningham** (2:18)
My name is Andrew.
Here we are again. Books.

**Craig Getting** (2:23)
They're piling up. Somebody's gotta read them.

**Andrew Cunningham** (2:25)
They keep making them. We keep reading them every week. One of us reads a book that we've never read before in our podcast. Last week's intro is a little self-indulgent, I think, so let's get right to the point in this one.
Every week, one of us reads a book we've never read before. We tell the other person about it. We tell you about it. Everybody has a good time. We learn a little about the author, about ourselves.

**Craig Getting** (2:47)
Yeah.

**Andrew Cunningham** (2:48)
We probably get a couple of things wrong and make people mad, but we also make people happy, probably.

**Craig Getting** (2:54)
That's what we hear. Those are reports.

**Andrew Cunningham** (2:57)
This week, the book that I read is Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst.

**Craig Getting** (3:02)
Yeah. This only came out in the US very recently.

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:07)
Yeah.

**Craig Getting** (3:08)
It's a pretty recent book, all told, published in-

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:11)
Heard about it through a friend who read it in her book club.

**Craig Getting** (3:15)
Sure.

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:16)
Yes.

**Craig Getting** (3:17)
It does seem to have people who are following contemporary millennial fiction, following just contemporary authors. This has had buzz.
It was published in Denmark in 2024, then released in the UK in English in 2025, translated by Sherrilyn Nicolette Helberg, and then released just this past June here in the States. But I think seems like it's been on the list for folks.

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:48)
Yeah. Hey, Craig, is this book Toy Story 5? Because it has buzz.

**Craig Getting** (3:57)
Is this book a mission to the moon? Because it has buzz.
Is this book the beer from the Drew Carey show that they made? Because it is buzz.

**Andrew Cunningham** (4:11)
That's stretching a little bit.

**Craig Getting** (4:15)
Why buzz beer looms so large in my brain, I don't know. Anyway, we're here to talk about this book. Ernst, this is her debut novel. She was born in 1988, studied at the University of Copenhagen. She's a staff writer at the Danish Weekly Weekendavisen.
It was originally, just love to dive into why a thing is a thing. It was actually, back in the day, you used to get your mail twice a day. That's where the term like an evening newspaper comes from. Used to get two newspapers a day. And then they stopped delivering mail twice a day in Denmark. And the guys who ran the evening edition were like, well, we need to come up with something. So they started this other paper, this weekly weekend division paper. And the Danish name of the book is Kuntnalen, which translates more literally to only to the naval. Which, as I was reading about it, carries more of a like explicit bit of advice slash warning. It's about like how far you might go into a body of water safely.