I don’t know how she does it

Meet Kate Reddy, fund manager and mother of two. She can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones and get herself and two children washed and dressed and out of the house in half an hour. A victim of time famine, Kate counts seconds like other women count calories. As she hurtles between appointments, through her head spools the crazy tape-loop of the working mother’s life: must remember client reports, bouncy castles, transatlantic phone call, nativity play, check Dow Jones, cancel hygienist, squeeze sagging pelvic floor, make time for sex. Factor in a manipulative nanny, an Australian boss who looks at Kate’s breasts as if they’re on special offer, a long suffering husband, her quietly aghast in-laws, two needy children and an e-mail lover, and you have a woman juggling so many balls that some day soon something’s going to hit the ground. In an uproariously funny and achingly sad novel, Allison Pearson captures the guilty secret lives of working mothers, the self-recriminations, comic deceptions, forgeries, giddy exhaustion and despair as no other writer has ever done. With fierce irony and a sparkling style, she brilliantly dramatises the dilemma of working motherhood at the start of the 21st century.

 

Review

The writing is sharp, funny and cleverly observant of the small details – funny, intelligent and insightful’ –Waterstone’s Books Quarterly 

brutally witty –Metro

It might be a sad indictment of the way things are today, but that doesn’t stop Pearson making it funny –Glamour

a funny, heartbreaking mirror of the daily lives of mothers –Telegraph magazine

Pearson writes with instinctive comedy’ –Observer Review

funny, fast and full of nail-on-the-head observations –Daily Telegrapgh

sparkling black comedy –Play

Painfully funny –Heat

Pearson is a hilarious author who captures the guilt and the exhaustion of the working mother’s life perfectly –Dublin Daily

Pearson writes with gratifying elegance and endearing self-mockery –New York Times

It’s the incisive details and Pearson’s vivid writing that propel the story –New York Times Books

smart book… great fun –New York Times

Pearson is insightful, witty and full of fun –Daily Telegraph

searing comedy –New Statesman

wonderfully warm, witty and intelligent –Sunday independent

A Bible for the working woman –Oprah Whitfey

A grown-up novel that is hilarious, heartbreaking and brimming with the bitter-sweet tang of all our lives –Tony Parsons

Allison Pearson is one of the stars of her generation –Alexandra Shulman

I can’t think of a woman who wouldn’t want this book. –India Knight

Her social observation is unerringly accurate…so beautifully written that it brought tears to my eyes, as well as a wry smile –The Daily Telegraph

Pearson… to write a novel… that has already sold a gazillion copies and is going to become a film. Hats off to you, madam! –Ok Magazine

she will… make you laugh –Culture, Sunday Times

refreshingly engaging –Vogue

Pearson… has made it all fresh again –Time

entertaining, compulsively readable, and brilliantly written. –Daily Candy

hilarious and … poignant –Publisher’s Weekly

This terrific novel is alternately hilarious and sad –Upfront

Here at last is the definitive social comedy of working motherhood –Washington Post

A book that made me howl with laughter –The Times

I am very taken with Kate Reddy…her tale made me cry twice and laugh often. –Independent on Sunday

It may change your life –The observer

Pearson is a very witty and moving writer. Her prose is spare and skilful, … waspish truisms and spot-on social observations. –Daily Express

Intelligent, witty and of-the-moment, it mixes sassy, brittle perceptions with barefaced sentimentality –The Herald, Glasgow

Pearson…never hides her intelligence or apologises for her seriousness of purpose. –The times,Play

extremely funny –The Irsih Times

brilliantly captures and defines the mood of the moment…sparkling wit and razor sharp insights –XW Magazine

sharply observed and frequently funny –Evening Standard