Cleverly written and sharply observant of the mores of
upper-income San Franciscans (the only kind that can even begin to afford to
live there), Hemmings novel centers on single mom, Mele, and her toddler
daughter, Ellie. When Mele announced to
the father of the baby that she was pregnant, he in turn revealed that he was
engaged. Her decision to have the baby
despite his desertion could only have been made remotely possible with the off-camera financial help of her
parents. She seems, throughout the book,
to be without other visible means of support yet somehow lives in one of the
world’s most expensive places. After
some false starts, through the “San Francisco Mommy Club” Mele finds a
congenial “play group” of other moms, and one dad, who meet at a local
park. My enjoyment of the book was
seriously limited by my lack of sympathy for the various “First World Problems”
that concern all of them. 223 pp.
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