Slummy Mummy

April 23, 2007
L
ike Bridget Jones before her, Lucy Sweeney, the heroine of this pastel-jacketed bonbon of a debut, is an endearing everywoman prone to disaster. But unlike her chick lit predecessor, Lucy is a married, stay-at-home mom who gave up an impressive career as a television news producer to care for her three sons in tony northwest London. Lucy exists in a constant state of chaos (she has lost 11 credit cards in the past year; she has seven different kinds of credit card debt; and her habit of wearing pajamas to drop off her children at school has hardly gone unnoticed). But, when a flirtation with “Sexy Domesticated Dad” (a fellow classroom parent) threatens to develop into something more, so too does Lucy’s growing sense that “somewhere in the domestic maelstrom I have lost myself.” Whether she will find herself again—and, in time—is the question at the center of this crackling-with-wit debut. Although the plot careens toward an over-the-top, too-neat ending, London Times
columnist Neill’s delight in and empathy for her characters, her respect for the demands of domestic life and her tender evocations of motherhood more than compensate.

September 24, 2007
Neill's humorous novel about a hopelessly disorganized mother constantly getting herself into scrapes would have benefited from abridgment. While talented narrator Kellgren ably conveys Lucy's likability and expertly creates distinctive voices for the other characters, the novel's many similar incidents blur. Lucy constantly finds herself in embarrassingly public situations (her toddler son pees on the leg of a famous actor; she uses a credit card she's reported lost and must deal with the police; she ducks down in her car to avoid being seen by someone and a crowd gathers to find out who abandoned their children in a car). After a while, the repetitive incidents become predictable, and the audiobook's pace becomes tedious. Only on the final disc does the story pick up again, with a hilariously farcical climax that throws all the characters and subplots together. The characters are likable and the story is amusing, but judicious abridging would have made for a brisker, funnier listen. Simultaneous release with the Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, April 23).