My Life on a Plate - Softcover

Knight, India

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618154442 ISBN 13: 9780618154449

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2001

Synopsis

Optioned for film and published in sixteen countries, this British sensation explodes the myth that all people need to be truly happy is love and marriage. Meet thirty-three-year-old Clara Hutt: irreverent, sometimes unkind, always self-deprecating. Clara is a part-time magazine writer with a perpetually mysterious husband and two small boys, and some days she wakes up with the feeling that her life isn't all it should be. Her extended stepfamily is forever making demands; her sons are constantly "murdering each other"; all the other mothers at the school gate are perfectly groomed, but Clara is in her pajama bottoms and her husband's sweater.
With razor-sharp wit and a healthy dose of insight into married life, India Knight takes readers on a continually entertaining ride through one woman's bumpy search for fulfillment.

About this title

Review:

Some would say Clara (Jabba the) Hutt has achieved "the goal": husband, house and 2.4 children. She is a "smug married." However, there's always a downside and Clara's not-so-perfect life consists of carting her boys to and from school, giving her a chance to see how the truly flawless mothers exist; trying to decipher, after eight years of marriage, whether her mysterious husband actually exercises his bodily functions or not; and, of course, her eccentric family, which consists of a thin, beautiful, insane mother and a string of ex-step-daddies, plus ex-step-siblings. Added to the Clara cocktail are her swinging single friends, the perfect mothers who turn out to be Jezebels in M & S clothing, and the strange Irish dancer who she must interview, renamed by her five year old as "bloody Dunphy."

Hailed as the Bridget Jones of the 21st century, India Knight's first novel My Life on a Plate is a good giggle. If anything, it is the inverse of Bridget Jones since Clara Hutt starts with everything and heads in completely the opposite direction. Funny, warm and full of "does my bum look big in this?" sentiment, Clara ponders the question: "everyone wants to be married--don't they?" --Neena Dutta

Review:

"a jaunty, post-feminist fairy tale..." Boston Globe

"An enormously charming, often scabrously funny first novel . . . The irrepressible Clara is also irresistible: as she deconstructs and reconstructs herself endlessly, there are insights aplenty about making do, holding on, and letting go." Kirkus Reviews

"Witty and raucous . . . entertains while animating many of the common misconceptions people have about marriage." Publishers Weekly

"Witty commentary on middle-class mores and humor make this . . . novel an enjoyable read." Library Journal

At once realistic and hopeful." Booklist, ALA, Boxed Review

"A wickedly funny and painfully honest comic novel. It comforts those of us who have experienced the misery of marital desertion and an infestation of headlice. It's a triumph. I intend to buy it for everybody I love."--Sue Townsend, author of The Adrian Mole Diaries

"Well-written, neatly constructed and . . . funny . . . Like her creator, Clara has a talent for seeing the farcically tragic in all that surrounds her."--The Guardian (UK)

"Disturbingly funny . . . India Knight has a gritty understanding of the games married people play. This witty writer has written a snappy account of modern marriage with an underlying seriousness." --Sunday Times (UK)

"India Knight's wildly funny survey of women's lives will leave you nodding in recognition and laughing out loud. Picture Nora Ephron (of Heartburn) meeting Nora Helmer (of Ibsen's A Doll's House) for cake, coffee, and fireworks. Delicious." --Regina Barreca, author of Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales)

"Sharp, witty . . . Knight's novel is groundbreaking in current fiction in that it attempts to investigate modern marriage: what it does to women, their sex drive and their sense of self." Marie Claire (UK)

"Knight's funny, assured portrait . . . combines chick lit with journalistic lifestyle-ese (and the power of YSL's Touch Eclat)."--Independent (UK)

"So vigorous, funny and opinionated . . . Not only full of brilliantly funny and knowing sentences, but of heroically ghastly characters too." Evening Standard (UK)

"India Knight dishes us a helping of humour and heartache on the condition of the modern Mrs." Elle (UK)

"This novel makes a refreshing change from the 'single girl seeks man with increasing desperation' theme . . . The style is zappy and witty, with clever and perceptive dialogue...Clara is such a riotously outspoken and unpretentious heroine that you cannot help loving her."--The Bookseller (UK)

"A comic tour de force."--Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0618154442
• ISBN 13: 9780618154449
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224