Getting a Life: Stories

You can tell that Helen Simpson's language is crunchy and delicious by the way all the reviewers take joy in quoting passages from her book. The stories are about the strange mix of emotions and guilt washing over mothers, particularly mothers of young children - being lonely, sad, funny, scathing, wistful, crushed, frustrated, exhausted, always thinking of their children's needs first. They're about how hard it can be, in ways that no one really likes to say out loud. The story where two mothers with high-powered careers hide from their daily responsibilities in an exclusive clothing shop is not just some indulgent shopping fantasy - they find a secret place where they can indulge their whims without feeling torn, the only guilt being monetary. The men in these stories live in a parallel universe, where they can continue to put their wishes and needs first, never having to feel "freeze-dried and vacuum-packed." Simpson's stories are like bright, polished, hard stones.

"Getting a Life," a collection of 9 short stories by British author Helen Simpson, speaks about the joys and pitfalls of domestic life for modern women. The feeling of perpetually riding up an escalator that never reaches the top haunts their soul, each woman begs for a break. They all hunger for solitude: a precious commodity for these over-run lives. The women dream, pine, scream for a life that is balanced - a husband who does his share, bosses who do not belittle them and a society that cherishes them for raising children. The women push forward endlessly, but remain embedded in a quagmire they do not exactly love or hate, but mostly tolerate for now. Many of the characters seem surprised by their circumstances and cannot remember the time before they were labeled wife, mother and worker simultaneously. The self has been emptied via the energy drainers: husband, kids and the workplace. Isolation resonates within each woman. This is most poignant in the short story, "Café Society." Two over-burdened women meet for a brief coffee afternoon break, but neither one is able to communicate the frustration or the ache each feel. Simpson beautifully captures the formal outward exchange and the inward silent pain unable to be released. The short story begins, "Two shattered women and a bright-eyed child have just sat down at the window table in the café. Both women hope to talk, for their minds to meet; at the same time they are aware the odds against this happening are about fifty to one." The reader will cheer for the women in "Café Society" and all of Simpson's women characters as they struggle for an elusive freedom. But no quick-fix solutions are presented. Occasionally, the characters step forward a hair's breadth in their fight for inner-peace and balance. In short, Simpson's writing resonates due to its honesty. "Getting a Life" will warm you with biting humor and then chillingly expose the true face behind the masks of mother, wife, and worker. Bohdan Kot

I brought the paperback of this book back from the UK and finally got around to reading it last month. It is simply one of the best-- funniest, best written, most trenchant, most important, most affecting-- story collections published in the last decade. Pretty much every story in it is about a thirtysomething woman with children; some of the women stay at home and have minds of mush, some of them have full-time jobs and are running high levels of frustration, guilt, or rationalization; all of them are an amazing and distinctive combination of real and repellent and attractive and flawed and sympathetic. Simpson's the real thing. I'm buying all her other books now. This one was published in the US but with its outstanding UK title rendered, dreadfully, as "Getting a Life." What were the US publishers thinking?

I can't speak highly enough of this collection of stories - all centering around motherhood. But a warning: this is not a rosy look at the "joys of mothering." In a welcome unflinching style, Simpson plunges deep into the heart and guts of the changes and challenges that face anyone brave enough to bring a life into the world. The emotional issues that arise with motherhood make the physical changes that inevitably accompany it look like child's play. What happens when being a mom isn't all one thought it would be? In a child-centered culture that continually raises the standards for anyone wanting to make it into the Good Mom Club,women are often too ashamed to admit asking the question. For those who aren't, Getting a Life will mean validation with a capital "V."

These edgy stories deserve all of the editorial praise they have earned. Simpson's protagonists are smart married London women-with-children in their thirties. Several are well-paid professionals working in corporate worlds, and the rest used to, but are now home with young children. (Their good-looking husbands are not much part of the action of these stories.) These competent women are by turns cynical ("Stress! She could handle it. She positively enjoyed jumping in its salty waves." - from "Burns and the Bankers") and full of yearning - for connection, for sex, love, enough hours in the day, and - to their husbands' consistent dismay: even another baby. Simpson's protagonists are most often outwardly composed and howlingly distressed. A day starts out like any other and quietly appalling (and wholly believable) events take place. The action is described acidly, accurately, and sometimes from several points of view. Simpson's ability to turn a phrase wowed me, along with her pitch-perfect ear for dialogue. She can by turns describe a shopping trip, an evening at the opera, sexual disappointment, the inner life of a teenage girl, the weather, office politics, men in kilts, or intense emotional states in ways that left me breathless. This is a terrifically satisfying read.