âMasterly deftness, funny sentence by funny sentence...a moving and intricately braided story of two mothers.â âJonathan Franzen, The Guardian
This âbeguiling, addictive readâ (People, Book of the Week) and Belletrist Book Club pick about a blue-blooded single mother raising her daughter in rarefied New York City is a âcarefully observed family story [that] rings true to lifeâ (The New York Times Book Review).
Laura hails from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, born into old money, drifting aimlessly into her early thirties. One weekend in 1981 she meets a man. The two sleep together. He vanishes. And Laura realizes sheâs pregnant.
Enter: Emma.
âUnputdownableâ (Library Journal) and âwryly observedâ (Vogue), Laura & Emma follows Laura as she raises Emma in New York City over the next fifteen years. With wit and compassion, Kate Greathead explores the many flaws and quirks that make us human. Lauraâs story hosts a cast of effervescent and original characters, including her eccentric mother, who informs her society friends and Emma herself that she was fathered by a Swedish sperm donor; her brother, whose childhood stutter reappears in the presence of their forbidding father; an exceptionally kind male pediatrician; and her overbearing best friend, whose life has followed the Park Avenue script in every way except for childbearing.
âKate Greatheadâs debut novel gamely takes on class conflict, single motherhood, and the discreet pretension of the 1980s Upper East Sideâ (New York magazine) and is a âlayered story about mothers and daughters and identityâ (Entertainment Weekly). Told in vignettes whose every ârestrained and understated sentence has been polished to glittering brightnessâ (Vox), Laura & Emma is âan incisive comedy of manners about class divides and the âburdensâ of being born privilegedâ (Esquire) and âa thoughtful novel of trying to find oneself despite an assigned place in the worldâ (Publishers Weekly).