Natural Disaster
'Mrs Dalloway meets Motherland' (The Times) in this hilariously relatable, sharply observed new novel from the author of NOT WORKING
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- Vorbestellbar
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- Erwartet am 25. Juni 2026
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'Like Mrs Dalloway with Calpol . . . very, very funny' THE TIMES
'Hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating' MONICA ALI
'Sharply observed and deeply relatable comedy' GUARDIAN, 70 brilliant books for the summer
'Funny, sad, tender and perfectly observed' IRISH TIMES
'Fantastic' JESSIE BURTON
'A joy' STYLIST, BOOK OF THE MONTH
'An extremely funny book that's both perceptive and propulsive' ADAM KAY
For weeks, she has been saying it will be their special day. One last, perfect day with her children before she returns to work after maternity leave. What's the worst that can happen?
Unfolding across 24 hours, Natural Disaster is a novel about the absurd, frustrating, hilarious, precarious, bittersweet, sometimes astonishing challenge - literal, existential - of being a woman, a mother, a wife, a person for one single, entire day.
'Funny, moving ... A powerful addition to the literature of surviving procreation' DIANA EVANS, GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY
'Funny and relatable, it captures the overwhelming, absurd and quietly extraordinary reality of motherhood' WOMAN & HOME
'Funny, sharp unputdownable' NINA STIBBE
'Hilarious ... brilliantly sharp' RED MAGAZINE
'I did not give Lisa Owens permission to look inside my very soul but she seems to have done it anyway. Smart, wise and real' CLAIRE LYNCH
'Captures the absurdity, tenderness and frazzle of modern motherhood with acute, painfully recognisable humour' iPaper, Best Books for June
'I absolutely loved it' LUCY DIAMOND
'Spiky wit and unsentimental pathos ... I laughed out loud' DAILY MAIL
'Compulsive, agonising, and hilarious' CHRIS POWER
'The funniest novel I've read in years' CLAIRE POWELL
'Brilliant, hilarious, gut-punchingly truth-telling' EMILY ITAMI
'Thunderously good' NATHAN FILER
'A genuinely dazzling novel' DAVID WHITEHOUSE
'This is the book I've been waiting for ever since I had children. So propulsive I read it in a single sitting' MARIANNE LEVY
'Destined to become a classic' JESSICA STANLEY
'What a perfect depiction of early motherhood, womanhood, and love' OLIVIA POTTS
'I absolutely adored it.' EMMA HUGHES
'Generous, funny, heartbreaking and clever' LIZZY STEWART
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British writer Owens (Not Working) offers a smart and painfully relatable tale of a new mother's anxieties. The novel takes places over the final 24 hours of the unnamed protagonist's maternity leave. Despite the urging of her "fellow working mothers" to leave her two children at day care and treat herself to a spa, she opts instead for a special day out with her children. Things go wrong from the start, with the baby, Rudy, waking at 4:45 a.m., followed by his four-year-old brother, Felix. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the mother's husband is out of town for work. Owens presents the day as a realistic mixture of mind-numbing boredom and agonizing worry, as when the protagonist feels an "inescapable certainty" that her husband is cheating on her, and fears that they're ruining their children by sending them to a day care with "iron bars on the windows." The stakes ratchet up bit by bit, as the mother and her children face one challenge after another, from an ill-advised pastry order to a rough playground exit and Felix's alarmingly high fever. Owens is an excellent anthropologist of new motherhood, her prose is nuanced and funny, and the novel builds by gradual accumulation of detail to a surprisingly weighty denouement. It's a keen-eyed narrative.
