My Life On a Plate

October 30, 2000
Clara Hutt, 33, speaks for middle-class marital ennui as she reflects on her life, her indifferent husband, Robert, her two lice-ridden young boys, and her "roomy four-bedroomed Victorian terraced" London home and asks, "Is that it, then?" With a sense of humor that ranges from witty and raucous to simpering and mean-spirited, British first-time author Knight relates the ribald story of a modern woman and her quest for happiness. Clara, whose fragmented family consists of a mother who's fond of accumulating ex-husbands, a wealthy but distant father, two spoiled stepsisters and a listless stepbrother, resolves to have a "nuclear" family. After attaining this conventional goal, however, she discovers that marriage is more boring than blissful. The arduous rigmarole of "hoovering," chauffeuring, cooking and compromising leaves Clara unsatisfied. She tends to complain, self-deprecate and obsess on trivialities while comparing herself to her friends: Tamsin, who is single, unburdened and prowling for romance; Stella the "pottery cat," a rustic single mother who bakes her own bread; Naomi, the model housewife who feeds her kids gourmet lunches and manages to keep her home impeccably clean. Simmering with envy, longing for affection (and a little bit of "swooning"), Clara grows restless and seeks solace in the admiring eyes of an unlikely character. Although Knight's lively narrative entertains while animating many of the common misconceptions people have about marriage, the reader should be prepared to suspend belief for the final course of this chatty tale.