Hey Yeah Right Get A Life Helen Simpson Vintage, 179pp, £6.99 ISBN 0099284227
Helen Simpson, in this collection of short stories, is drawn to a time in women's lives usually politely overlooked in fiction. From the opening story's description of a teenage girl's exquisite disdain for a harassed mother struggling to remove a lentil from her baby's nose, these tender, funny tales record the inevitable decline into "flabby womany-ness" that accompanies having children. Simpson looks behind baggy eyes and sweatshirts to reveal tired, lonely women mourning their younger selves.
In "Cafe Society", two exhausted mothers exchange wordless confidences, real conversation rendered impossible by the demands of a hyperactive child. Simpson captures the contradictory tyranny of motherhood, the combination of slavish devotion and resentment, and the insane lusting after more. The title story records the gradual re-emergence of a mother obliterated into a "big, fat zero" by her family. Dorrie has let herself go, she feels like a heifer and a bleating sheep, but she is ultimately beautiful and heroic.
The women in this suburban purdah move between the stories as naturally as they might bump into each other on the school run. Simpson finds poetry in a world of saggy leggings and snotty noses. She shows that writing about modern women need not be sexy - hurrah! The only false note is the jangly title, strangely discordant with such a wise, gentle collection.
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