My Life on a Plate

by Knight, India

• ISBN13: 9780618154449
• ISBN10: 0618154442
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-23
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

Optioned for film and published in sixteen countries, this British sensation explodes the myth that all people need to be truly happy is love and marriage. Meet thirty-three-year-old Clara Hutt: irreverent, sometimes unkind, always self-deprecating. Clara is a part-time magazine writer with a perpetually mysterious husband and two small boys, and some days she wakes up with the feeling that her life isn't all it should be. Her extended stepfamily is forever making demands; her sons are constantly "murdering each other"; all the other mothers at the school gate are perfectly groomed, but Clara is in her pajama bottoms and her husband's sweater.With razor-sharp wit and a healthy dose of insight into married life, India Knight takes readers on a continually entertaining ride through one woman's bumpy search for fulfillment.

Author Biography

India Knight used to write a weekly column in the Observer Life section, and is a regular contributor to a number of magazines and newspapers. My Life on a Plate is her first novel.

Excerpts

One What should happen is, I should somehow catch my reflection in a mirror, or a shop window, fifty or so pages in, and describe myself to you that way. Seems a bit contrived to me, that method, besides which, if I catch my reflection in shop windows, I tend to scream with horror, rather than tip my head to one side and make measured, composed obser-vations. Also, I always want to know what people look like right at the start, don't you? You'd feel pretty peeved if you discovered, much later on, that I was a psychopathic two- ton Tessie with flat feet and a moustache, or -- worse -- some hateful, eating- disordery twig that wafts around in Prada smelling of sick. So let's get things straight. I don't smell of sick. (That's my friend Amber, whom you'll meet later. Her hobbies are bu-limia and self-help books. My hobby is being compassionate.) And I don't weigh two tons, although, as a ripe size 16, I'm hardly what you'd call frail and reedy either. What else? Five nine, dark hair, green eyes -- oh look, I'm sounding all sexy, which isn't quite right. Let's see. If you asked Kate, my mother, she would shake her head very sadly, as if I were an especially precious kitten that had died in tragic circumstances, and tell you I've 'let myself go disgustingly'. And I suppose she would be right. I mean, I've got the man, the house, the children: why not celebrate by tucking into a doughnut or two of a morning? Or an apricot Danish, or indeed a whole tube of Pringles . . . As a consequence, I favour elasticated waists and loose tops, although I have a sneaky liking for vulgar shoes and organza (which I try to curb, as nobody wants to look like White Trash Slut Mum at the PTA meetings). The best way I can think of describing my-self is: we're not talking control pants yet, but we're not go-ing to pretend that they haven't struck us as being a pretty damned handy kind of a garment either. My name is Clara, which is quite pretty, and my surname is Hutt, which isn't, although it enables me to think of myself as Jabba the Hutt in my more self-loathing moments. This is useful. I have two children, Charlie, who is six, and Jack, who is three. I have a husband, Robert, who is a mystery (does anybody actually know what goes on in their husband's head, or is it just me?) but quite attractive. I have a part-time job as a magazine writer, a big house and nice clothes, and friends that don't smell of sick as well as some that do. I am thirty-three. And some days I wake up with the sneaky feeling that my life isn't all it should be. In the current climate, you probably want to know how I Got My Man. I do feel quite pleased with myself, sometimes, actually. I look at my friend Tamsin, thirty-four, single and desperate, and feel a warm glow of intense smuggery. Sometimes, though, I am so overwhelmed with jealousy -- I can't remember the last time I was out all night, drinking martinis and flirting with strangers -- that I feel compelled to initiate lectures, masquerading as conversations, about all the things that might go wrong if one were -- perfectly hypothetically, of course -- trying to have a child past the age of thirty-five. This is because, despite external appearances, I am a) on the childish side and b) not very nice. Getting my man: why, the trick is to be young and attractive. No, not really. The trick is not to look. Robert and I were twenty-five when we got married, which is comparatively young these days, and I weighed three stone less and was a bit of a minx, which helped. I can say it, now that I am an Old Married Lady, with