Are We Having Fun Yet?

Description

Taking its cue from Diary of a Provincial Lady, EM Delafield's dry-witted classic of domesticity and other vexations, Diary Of A Suburban Lady is a comic novel about the vicissitudes of domestic life chez frantic narrator Liz Dashwood. Like Bridget Jones (the third) without the death. Like Fleabag without the glamour or the priest and in a book. Like Nina Stibbe before she thinks of it. From the deep rage of knowing where to find every single thing your husband is looking for to the joy of a friend's longed-for pregnancy, here is the pleasurable stab of fellow feeling you get over drinks with friends. Liz records her ups and downs, including the love of a good cat (up), not being able to find a babysitter (secret up) and the question of what 'we' really means when it comes to fixing the dishwasher (definitely, definitely down). Spiky, charming and most of all loving, it's a hilarious skewering of the sweetness and nightmare that is modern family life.

Lucy Mangan is a journalist and columnist. She spent two years training as a solicitor, but left as soon as she qualified and went to work much more happily in a bookshop instead. She got a work experience placement at the Guardian in 2003 and hung around until they gave her a job. She has a weekly column in Stylist magazine. Lucy's memoir BOOKWORM, a personal history and celebration of children's literature, was published by Square Peg in March 2018.

Utterly wonderful ... full of love. Enormously uplifting, funny and witty and wry -- Marian Keyes I read everything by Lucy Mangan, she is one of the funniest writers in Britain. -- Jenny Colgan Utterly, utterly perfect and brilliant - I think it is, simply, a new classic, and the book every woman will be able to trust to make her happy when she picks it up. Lucy Mangan is a fucking genius. SO MUCH WISDOM IN IT. SO MUCH ANGER. SO MUCH LOVE. SO MUCH LOL. It's just exquisite -- Caitlin Moran I was crying with laughter reading so much of it ... full of pure simmering rage -- Emma Barnett * BBC Woman's Hour * Such a perfectly precise rendering of life with small children, I felt like I was reading my own diary from my first years of motherhood - had I been cleverer, wittier and more intent on finding the joy and hope and humour amid all the mess of life. So deeply relatable, every parent presently in the trenches of family life should read it, to feel less alone (and all of their child-free friends, to explain why their formerly fun and capable BF is now always exhausted, late and grubby) * Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss * Lucy Mangan nails the absurd pitfalls of modern life/marriage/small children so completely and honestly, but with a lightness of touch that means the overall effect is calming and nourishing and feels like having a really good chat with a kind and loving friend. And so funny! I was shaking the bed with my laughter. -- Cathy Rentzenbrink Warm, witty and invigorated by righteous anger -- Amber Pearson * Mail on Sunday * A comic update on EM Delafield's Diary Of A Provincial Lady that will hit home with anyone who hates the verb "to multitask" -- 'Books to make people laugh' * Stylist * Family life under the microscope - scalpel sharp and gloriously real. Pure Mangan: witty and wickedly funny -- Jenny Eclair Compelling, connecting humour from start to finish ... motherhood made funny -- Helen Lederer A glorious, outrageously funny retelling of E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady. At once a celebration of the joy of family life and a cry of anguish at the utter hell of it. Laugh out loud, compulsive reading. -- Nina Stibbe This romp through the chaos of family life will have you wincing and rejoicing in equal measure -- Susie Mesure * iPaper *