Mother lode of caustic wit

Kate Reddy is a high-powered London hedge fund manager, a go-getter from the get-go, traveling for business -- New York today, Germany tomorrow -- working every vacation, as well as most evenings and weekends. Kate is also the mother of two small children, and therein lies the rub. In trying to reconcile Kate’s two lives -- financial maverick by day, devoted mom in whatever scraps of leftover time she can scrounge up -- author and London journalist Allison Pearson finds the crux of her skillful and witty first novel, “I Don’t Know How She Does It.”

Using the in-your-face female British humor made popular by Helen Fielding’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” Pearson offers caustic insight into the plight of working mothers. Humor, though, is a dicey game when kids are at stake, and Kate’s initial actions regarding her children are so maddening that one wishes to grab the rolling pin from her hands and pummel some sense into her. It’s one thing to be ironic and scathingly funny about a character’s misadventures when only the character suffers the consequences, but with Kate Reddy’s tale, we’re forever reminded of the children at home.

Her infant son, Ben, keeps waking in the middle of the night for his mother’s attentions because that’s the only time she’s around to cuddle him. Kate, having spent the least amount of time possible with her progeny during the holiday season, complains that her children are even more needy after a dose of their mother’s care. “Clearly, my kids have not grasped the principle of Quality Time,” she laments.

When her preschooler gets sick and the nanny can’t come, Kate drops feverish Emily off at the house of a person she’s never met, an acquaintance of an acquaintance. It’s not the ideal situation, she admits, but what is? “Mummy staying at home and laying down her life for small feet to walk over. Would you do that? Could I do that?” Kate asks. “You don’t know me very well if you think I could do that.”

At stake is society’s definition of what constitutes good mothering and how women who want it all may have to sacrifice that model. In a scene of her thrashing mince pies to make them look homemade, Kate fails to recognize that her efforts have more to do with others’ impressions of her and absolutely nothing with her avowed (but seldom demonstrated) devotion to the children.

It’s a risky move on Pearson’s part, creating a narrator that’s initially so unlikable and blind to her own flaws. Kate grumbles about her way-too-busy life yet refuses to consider any alternative. “Can’t see how I can go on like this. Can’t see how to stop, either.” Regularly, she protests that her husband is not as helpful as she’d like, and then she rails at him when he tries. She gripes about being discriminated against at work, whines about the nanny’s lack of dedication and is forever grumbling about those needy children of hers. Admittedly, her complaining is wickedly funny, but the underlying reality keeps the story from being taken lightly.

Although sexism feeds her predicament -- women cannot have it all, thanks to society’s prejudice, Kate would argue -- it’s hard to imagine a male character as arrogant and egotistical as Kate still being lauded as an example of fine parenting.

Pearson, to her everlasting credit, does a skillful job of transforming Kate; she gradually becomes, if not completely likable, then at least understandable, someone for whom we feel compassion.

The writing is sharp and witty, erudite and yet down-to-earth, as Pearson artfully delineates Kate’s opposing home and business lives. Tensions simmer in the workplace between employers and working mothers. The women are resentful of their jobs for taking them away from their children and of their children for standing in their career paths. Animosity brews between stay-at-home mothers and their working counterparts, each of whom must vilify the other to make one’s difficult choice seem the best choice.

Pearson narrates these strains with a nod to the social fabric that has made this reality so, leaving the reader with an acerbic take on the hectic lives we live and the choices we continue to make to ensure that they remain just as frenzied.