Kate Reddy still remembers The Look her mother and another mum exchanged when a mother “who didn’t make the effort” tried to bring canned fruit to a school function.
“The look was unforgettable. It said, What kind of sorry slattern has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God’s bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread?”
One brand of humor requires being British. Another Southern. So I feel left-out that I was born in the North where it’s harder to write funny. Anyway, I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson was not only funny but poignant when all I expected was a good summer read. In an interview with the author, Pearson said she wrote an article on working mothers in the London Evening Standard that drew so many letters, she knew she had hit a cord. And so Pearson’s first novel was born. It has been labeled “chick lit” but there’s so much more to it and, besides, is well written. It was a best-seller in both America and England.
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