USA TODAY International Edition
‘How Hard Can It Be?’ Just ask poor Kate Reddy
Here’s a hot flash: The harried, hilarious protagonist of Allison Pearson’s 2002 best-seller “I Don’t Know How She Does It” is back in a sequel. And this time she’s facing menopause.
“How Hard Can It Be?” (St. Martin’s Press, 369 pp., you ask?
In Chapter 1, Kate Reddy is awakened at 2 a.m. by daughter Emily, who Snapchatted to a frenemy a photo of the tan line on her pert young butt, which quickly goes viral.
Husband Richard has lost his job and is in a two-year program to become a counselor while pedaling a pricey bicycle and doing lots of yoga and therapy to recapture what’s missing in his life.
That leaves Kate to find a job to support poor Richard and their teens, Emily and Ben, while she juggles caring for her eightysomething mum and Richard’s parents, who are coping with his mother’s dementia. Kate’s fixer-upper of a home outside London is a money pit, her credit rating has plunged, and she’s experiencing the aches and energy drain of perimenopause.
Pearson is fiercely funny and keenly observant. But her poignant statements about such serious topics as aging, the invisibility of older women and the impact a paycheck has on a woman’s psychemake this a must-read. Kate joins Women Returners, a support group of wives and mothers fighting their way back into a workplace that is woefully dismissive of how the skills required to manage a household might translate to employment.
Amid these troubles comes the aptly named Jack Abelhammer, the charming client and soulmate Kate left behind along with her job. Their connection remains electric. With apologies to Pete Seeger, if Kate had Abelhammer, she’d … well, you get the idea.
“How Hard” couldn’t be more timely or delightful as Kate faces the hormonal and hiring cliff that is turning 50, a marriage moping into midlife, parenting in the social media era and an office culture that is ripe for a Me Too moment. (“How Hard” already has been optioned for TV by “Big Little Lies” executive producer Bruna Papandrea.)
Amid this wry look at the sandwich generation, Pearson adds a dose of medical advice about hormone replacement therapy. As always, consult your doctor: Allison Pearson can induce gales of uncontrollable laughter.