How to Party With an Infant

June 27, 2016
In her funny and sensitive fourth novel, Hemmings (The Descendants) explores the intersection of personhood and parenthood. Mele Bart is a single mother in San Francisco navigating the world of potty-training specialists, elite preschools, playdate etiquette, and nanny envy. To top it all off, she is contemplating attending the wedding of the father of her child, the man who left her when she told him she was pregnant. After multiple failed attempts at seeming like another perfect privileged mother, Mele finds refuge among the other misfit parents in her daughter’s playgroup—Annie, Barrett, Georgia, and Henry. With their encouragement, she decides to revisit her dream of becoming an author and enters a cookbook-writing contest sponsored by the San Francisco Mother’s Club. Interspersing recipes inspired by her own life with recipes inspired by the other parents in her group, all of whom are dealing with feelings of inadequacy, Mele devises a cookbook that is equal parts introspection and sharp observation. Mele’s candor, her friends’ stories, and some hilariously cringe-worthy interjections from the Mother’s Club online message board come together in a layered narrative that is both ruthless and empathetic, satirical and sincere. Agent: David Forrer, Inkwell Management.

Joy Osmanski gives a graceful and attentive performance of this charming and often hilarious addition to the Mommy-Lit shelf. The title refers to a possible title for a possible cookbook the heroine hopes to write. Mele is a San Francisco single mother whose faithless baby daddy is getting married to someone else, and wants their daughter to be the flower girl at his wedding. Her mommy support group includes Henry, a rich and handsome married father and husband whose life is unraveling; see if you can guess where that's going. Osmanski handles drama and comedy with equal deftness, and there's plenty of both here, as Mele's friends tell her their stories so she can weave them into her cookbook proposal. It's wonderful fun. B.G. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

November 1, 2016

Mele, single mother of Ellie, joined the San Francisco Mother's Club (SFMC) to be matched with the perfect playgroup, something that never happened. Two years later, she's part of a rogue, "laughing, shit-talking, texting, even talking on the phone" fivesome that came together organically at the playground they all frequent. They've recently decided to go "official" with SFMC for the benefits, one of which, for Mele, means entering the SFMC Cookbook Competition. Completing the intimately detailed questionnaire yields wild and zany answers that reveal how Mele improvises (including the truth), seeks (even steals), and obsesses (over Ellie's father's desertion and his impending wedding). Interspersed with Mele's self-examination are entertaining glimpses of her eclectic playgroup; between trying too hard to impress and managing fraying familial bonds, Mele's four BFFs provide just the right recipe for companionship, support, and raucous good times. Hemmings (The Descendants) mixes the best and worst moments of parenthood with plenty of snark and delight. With her buoyant, charming voice, Joy Osmanski proves ideal for eliciting eye-rolling sympathy and head-nodding empathy. VERDICT Audiences in search of a chuckle-inducing, bitingly smart read will surely enjoy listening in. ["Effectively captures the judgmental, overly prescribed nature of today's parenting assumptions": LJ 8/16 review of the S. & S. hc.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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