Pearson, Allison 1960-

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Pearson, Allison 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born 1960, in South Wales; married Anthony Lane (a writer and film critic); children: Evie, Thomas.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cambridge, England.

CAREER:

Journalist and writer. Columnist for the London Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph, and the Independent. Television presenter for the BBC's J'Accuse; radio host of the BBC's The Copysnatchers. Judge for literary prizes, including the Orange Prize for Women's Fiction and the Forward Poetry Prize.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Critic of the Year and Interviewer of the Year, British Press Awards, 1993; Newcomer of the Year, British Book Awards, 2003, for I Don't Know How She Does It.

WRITINGS:

I Don't Know How She Does It (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2002.

ADAPTATIONS:

I Don't Know How She Does It has been optioned for film by Miramax.

SIDELIGHTS:

Allison Pearson was already well established as a journalist when she published her popular debut novel, I Don't Know How She Does It. The book's central character is Kate Reddy, an ambitious woman in her thirties who has risen from a lower-class background to success in a high-powered job, while struggling to balance her career with the demands of motherhood. In an interview on the Readers Read Web site, Pearson recalled that the book grew out of her reflections about the incredible pressures placed on working mothers. After writing an opinion piece on the subject for the London Evening Standard, she was deluged by responses from women saying that she had captured the tone of their lives. "It felt as though I'd opened a small door onto a parallel world and on the other side was this huge amount of unacknowledged feeling," Pearson said. Shortly after that, she attended a discussion at the London Business School at which professional women shared their stories about trying to balance work and home life. It was there that the character of Kate Reddy first came to Pearson, and she soon began her column focusing on Kate's fictional life in the London Daily Telegraph. "I'd like to say that I created her," Pearson said in her Readers Read interview, "but very soon she took over and wrote me, rather than me writing her!"

Eventually the character of Kate Reddy grew so vivid to Pearson that she was compelled to create a book about her. I Don't Know How She Does It portrays Kate as a woman who may seem to have it all, but who inwardly suffers from feelings of inadequacy both at home and in the workplace. Kate is a money-manager whose job requires frequent business trips and long office hours in a male-oriented workplace. When leaving on a business trip, she hides in the bathroom to avoid a tearful good-bye with her baby; feeling unequal to the stay-at-home mothers at her child's school, she buys baked goods at the store and then tries to make them look homemade. Many commentators noted that while this book is very funny, it also portrays the real frustrations that plague women like Kate. "This terrific novel is alternately hilarious and sad," wrote Meredith Parets in Booklist. The "clever cattiness" heard in Kate's narrative during the early chapters of the book is slowly replaced by "an earnest, endearing introspection," according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor.

Zoe Williams voiced another viewpoint in her New Statesman review; she felt that it was hard to sympathize with Kate because of the character's privileged lifestyle and her self-pity. Williams also found the novel lacking in "any sense of character beyond that of Kate herself." I Don't Know How She Does It was reviewed more favorably by Cathleen McGuigan, who remarked in Newsweek: "Pearson has an effortlessly smart style—she's not trying to buy our sympathy for her heroine or prompt a cheap laugh." The book's humor was appreciated by Janet Wiscombe, a reviewer for Workforce, but she also stated that in addition to being entertaining, I Don't Know How She Does It constitutes "an exploration of serious issues such as gender politics in the workplace and what constitutes good mothering."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, January-February, 2003, Adam Langer, "The New Working Mother: Allison Pearson," p. 38.

Booklist, September 1, 2002, Meredith Parets, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 7; November 15, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 576.

Bookseller, May 17, 2002, Allison Pearson, "The Twenty-Minute Mother," p. 33; June 21, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. S4; July 4, 2003, "Pearson for Chatto," p. 6.

Christian Century, April 19, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 30.

Commentary, December, 2002, Kay S. Hymowitz, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 67.

Daily Variety, August 6, 2003, Jonathan Bing, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 2.

Entertainment Weekly, October 11, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 78.

Fast Company, February 1, 2003, interview with Allison Pearson, p. 64.

Hollywood Reporter, August 10, 2001, Chris Gardner, review of U.K. Waiter ‘Does It’ for Miramax, p. 8.

Homemaker's, September, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 20.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 1257.

Library Journal, November 1, 2002, Beth Gibbs, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 130; March 15, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 54.

Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2002, Bernadette Murphy, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. E12.

Maclean's, November 11, 2002, Marni Jackson, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 96.

National Review, January 27, 2003, Charlotte Hays, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 45.

New Statesman, July 8, 2002, Zoe Williams, review of I Don't Know How She Does it, p. 53; December 2, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 43.

Newsweek, October 7, 2002, Cathleen McGuigan, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 12.

New Yorker, November 11, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 189.

New York Observer, October 7, 2002, Adam Begley, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 21.

New York Times, October 6, 2002, Tamar Lewin, "A New Book, Featuring Another Spineless Woman," p. WK5; October 7, 2002, Janet Maslin, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. E8.

New York Times Book Review, October 6, 2002, Kate Betts, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 7; December 8, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 62.

Progressive, February, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 41.

People, October 21, 2002, Lynda Wright, "Stressed for Success," p. 107; October 28, 2002, Moira Bailey, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 45; December 30, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 52.

Publishers Weekly, September 2, 2002, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 52.

Spectator, July 20, 2002, Charlotte Moore, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 37.

Time, October 7, 2002, Margaret Carlson, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 90.

Time International, July 29, 2002, Elizabeth Khuri, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 58.

Times Literary Supplement, July 12, 2002, Teri Apter, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 25.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), March 16, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 3; November 9, 2003, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 2.

Washington Post, October 2, 2002, Marjorie Williams, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. A17; November 12, 2002, Roxanne Roberts, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. C1.

Workforce, January, 2003, Janet Wiscombe, review of I Don't Know How She Does It, p. 19.

Writer, February, 2004, Allison Pearson, "How I Write," p. 66.