User:Frickative/The Bad Mother's Handbook

The Bad Mother's Handbook, published in 2004, is the debut chick lit novel of British author Kate Long.

Composition and publication
Picador is aiming a literary spotlight at Wigan in spring 2004, when it publishes The Bad Mother's Handbook, the story of three generations of women in the town. This first novel by Kate Long was the subject of very rapid and high bidding after it arrived on four publishers' desks last week; Picador's winning offer, taking in the novel and a follow-up, consisted of "a substantial six- figure sum". The deal is of interest in the industry as the first big coup by Peter Straus, the most prominent of the several publishers who have become literary agents recently. He was previously editor in chief at Picador.

This has been quite a month for Kate Long. Her first novel, The Bad Mother's Handbook, has been published and gone straight to the top of the hardback fiction charts: 20,000 sold so far, reprinted a fortnight after publication, serialised this week on Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, and all - as she points out in her no-nonsense way - with "bugger-all reviews in the broadsheets". It's a word-of-mouth sensation, a Tesco triumph.

Long, who is 39, taught English at a secondary school in nearby Chester for 13 years before quitting last July after signing a six-figure, two-book deal with Picador.

So when did she realise that The Bad Mother's Handbook would change her life? "I knew early in 2003, when I saw that Picador intended to pitch the book as a lead title. But you think twice before you chuck in a good job, and my mother's been really worried. All last year she was saying to me 'They will have you back, won't they? You can always go back to teaching.' She's been really concerned, and it's only recently the penny's begun to drop that, actually, the new job is probably better and more lucrative than the other one."

Her success has been portrayed as "northern lass hits literary jackpot overnight", but that ignores the fact that she has been writing for 10 years - short stories and an unpublished novel. The bulk of The Bad Mother's Handbook was written in an eight-week burst in 2001, though it took her another year to finish it. "I got a West Midlands arts grant for the summer holidays, and I just stuck the kids in nursery all summer - terrible mother! I got almost all the book written and then went back to work. After that, it slowed right up."

Since 1996 her literary adviser and de facto agent has been David Rees, who drummed up interest in the book from Hodder Headline. But by some Byzantine piece of publishing business, supersmart publisher-turned-agent Peter Straus then got involved and attracted interest from three other publishers - Doubleday, Bloomsbury and Picador. The latter bid the biggest six figures, and Long ended up with one happy publisher and, highly unusually, two ecstatic agents.

No one at Picador much liked the title, arguing that it sounded like a wacky self-help manual, but Long, who claims she is normally deferential to literary types, was intractable. The publisher now adores it. "The week before last, when the book had already reached number six in the bestsellers chart, my editor's boss at Picador rang me and he said it was the best title in the history of titles."

Long comes from what she calls the "lower middle class" and says she wanted to write a book about that distinctive, but largely ignored, group. "I couldn't think of any female writers who were writing about this kind of grey class that's just out of the working class and is clinging by its fingertips to middleclassness. All the novels I read that I thought were going to be about my kind of life - about women juggling lots of things - were actually about women with fantastic jobs, in London, with nannies. There didn't seem to be anything at all for me, reflecting my kinds of concerns."

The Bad Mother's Handbook, which is beautifully produced, falls into some pleasingly indeterminate territory between literary and populist fiction. "When you're learning to write," says Long, "people say to you all the time 'study your market and write to your market', but there comes a point where either you realise you're no good at that, or you don't want to do that. I thought this book will write itself and it did, in the voices that I wanted to use."

Sales.

Reception
There is hardly a false note. (I hedge my bets because there might be the odd over-deliberate cuteness in Nan's northern dialect - very much "Eeh, in't it grand?" - but I am told it's all authentic.) No character is a caricature. So unless you object to popularity per se, it is hard to pick on anything that's wrong about the book. Set in 1997, it could have gone on about Blair/Diana (Long forgets the nasty election campaign: anyone pregnant around May 1997 had to put up with many "New Labour - New Danger" jokes). The only problem is its very life-affirmingness. I would think twice before giving this to anyone who has had an abortion and is not entirely comfortable with that decision; its message is very much "keep the baby".

Top Ten Humour Reads.

Awards and nominations
Virgin Books Newcomer of the Year Award.

Audiobook
Lesley Sharp, Naomi Radcliffe and Joanna Wake.

TV dramatisation
It was broadcast on ITV on 19 February 2007, starring Catherine Tate, Anne Reid,Holly Grainger and Robert Pattinson. According to BARB, the show received strong viewing figures of 6.09 million.

ABC is developing a pilot known as "Bad Mother's Handbook" to star Alicia Silverstone, Megan Mullally and Alia Shawkat.

Long on the adaptation.

Reception
Review.