Swallowing Grandma

‘One day I’ll die,’ Poll’s always going, ‘and then you’ll be sorry, my girl.’ No I won’t. I’ll put the bloody flags out. I’ll tie a red-satin bow round Winston’s neck, dance stark naked up and down Mesnes Park, and put an ad in the ‘Celebrations’ column of the Wigan Observer. Katherine Millar is becoming desperate. At eighteen, when every other girl at school is dating and partying and heading for university, Katherine is stuck at home with just her grandmother, Poll, for company. Poll barely lets Katherine leave the house and has very strong opinions on everything from makeup (‘Smear some Vaseline on your face, that’s all you need at your age’) and clothes (‘What would you want a trouser suit for? You look like the side of a house as it is’) to Katherine’s favourite haunt, the local library (‘I don’t know what you want to keep trailing all the way up there for. It’s good telly tonight’). But when Katherine receives a birthday present from an anonymous friend, it suddenly feels as though her whole, miserable world is about to change—if only Poll will let it. In between changing her name, discovering boys (and girls), and bulimia, Katherine tries to figure out if all of this upheaval is just the remnants of her troubled past—or the key to her future.

Long, Kate

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Canada

Why is it all so difficult? Why do the most ridiculous mistakes have the most disastrous consequences? When are you too old to throw up in a flowerbed after drinking too much vodka? When are you too young to have a child? Karen is both a mother and a daughter, but wants to be so much more besides. Searching for her past, trying to secure her future, struggling with Nan's forgetfulness and unpredictability, as well as Charlotte's moods and teenage attitude, she finds herself caught in the middle, but also charged with holding her family together. Engaging and intelligent, The Bad Mother's Handbook is a matter-of-fact look at the intricacies of relationships and relatives, and an important reminder that while there are as many sorts of mother as there are children, it is love, not blood, that makes a family.

The Bad Mother's Handbook

London: Picador

Katherine Millar is eighteen, and desperate for lots of things - to be thinner and less swotty, and to have cooler friends. But most of all she wishes that she had two parents instead of one grandma, Poll. Katherine's father, Poll's adored only son, was killed in a car crash when she was a baby. According to Poll, the crash was the fault of Katherine's mother, who disappeared shortly afterwards and hasn't been seen since. Poll is pushing seventy, half-blind and utterly poisonous. Her ambition is for things to stay exactly the same for ever, and for Katherine never to leave their pit village of Bank Top; indeed for her to leave the house only when strictly necessary. Katherine has other ideas, especially when on her birthday she receives a mysterious parcel of glamorous, grown-up clothes - so unlike the ones Poll makes her wear. And then the handsome and self-assured Callum turns up, claiming to be a cousin she never knew she had. Katherine can feel that change is coming; the omens are all around her. In the meantime, she cleans up after Poll, revises for her exams, watches daytime television and surfs the net at the library trying to find out how to be bulimic. What she doesn't quite realize yet is that life won't always wait for you to catch up. "Swallowing Grandma" is a perceptive, vivid and painfully funny novel about the ties of love and hatred, and the ways in which our versions of the past can thwart our visions for the future. In Katherine and Poll, Kate Long has created two unforgettable characters locked in an epic battle over whose side of the story will ultimately prevail.

Contemporary

Picador

Katherine Millar is eighteen, and desperate for lots of things - to be thinner and less swotty, and to have cooler friends. But most of all she wishes that she had two parents instead of one grandma, Poll. Katherine's father, Poll's adored only son, was killed in a car crash when she was a baby. According to Poll, the crash was the fault of Katherine's mother, who disappeared shortly afterwards and hasn't been seen since. Poll is pushing seventy, half-blind and utterly poisonous. Her ambition is for things to stay exactly the same for ever, and for Katherine never to leave their pit village of Bank Top; indeed for her to leave the house only when strictly necessary. Katherine has other ideas, especially when on her birthday she receives a mysterious parcel of glamorous, grown-up clothes - so unlike the ones Poll makes her wear. And then the handsome and self-assured Callum turns up, claiming to be a cousin she never knew she had. Katherine can feel that change is coming; the omens are all around her. In the meantime, she cleans up after Poll, revises for her exams, watches daytime television and surfs the net at the library trying to find out how to be bulimic. What she doesn't quite realize yet is that life won't always wait for you to catch up. "Swallowing Grandma" is a perceptive, vivid and painfully funny novel about the ties of love and hatred, and the ways in which our versions of the past can thwart our visions for the future. In Katherine and Poll, Kate Long has created two unforgettable characters locked in an epic battle over whose side of the story will ultimately prevail.

The story of three generations of women - grandmother, mother and daughter - narrated from their separate perspectives, and showing the complex relationships that exist between them

Queen Mum

Pan MacMillan Paperback Omes

The Bad Mother's Handbook/Swallowing Grandma

Pan Australia

BAD MOTHER RULE #1: NEVER, EVER, DO WHAT I DID! For seventeen-year-old Charlotte Cooper, it’s too late. Despite her best efforts to finish school, tune out her angry, slightly hysterical mother, and cope with her loving but dotty grandmother, she is unexpectedly (now that’s an understatement) pregnant. And don’t even mention the jerk who knocked her up. Charlotte’s mother, Karen, is trying to convince herself that there are worse things than becoming a grandmother at thirty-three. For instance, there’s wanting to kill Charlotte for the mess she’s made of her life. Between struggling to pay the bills and halfheartedly filling out questionnaires on Internet dating sites, Karen uncovers a scandalous family secret involving her own birth, and then falls back into bed with her sexy ex-husband. So much for perfect timing. In the meantime, Karen’s mother, Nan, is having a wee bit of trouble with names (sometimes her own). But that doesn’t keep her from retaining a few things she’d rather forget. Of course, Nan knows that everything will work out fine for Charlotte and the baby–these things usually do. Now, if only she could put the pieces of her own fragmented memory together, she might have an interesting tale or two to share. In this wickedly funny, disarmingly moving novel, three generations of mothers learn that it’s the simplest mistakes that can change your life forever. With wit and wisdom, Kate Long proves that there are as many kinds of mothers as there are daughters, but the love that binds them all is what truly matters.

The Bad Mother's Handbook: A Novel

Ballantine Books

Humor & Satire

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Long, Kate. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Long, Kate

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Long, Kate. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Swallowing Grandma

The Bad Mother's Handbook

Swallowing Grandma

Swallowing Grandma

The Bad Mother's Handbook

Queen Mum

Queen Mum

The Bad Mother's Handbook/Swallowing Grandma

The Bad Mother's Handbook: A Novel

The Bad Mother's Handbook: A Novel