From Publishers Weekly
War photographer and author Kogan (Shutterbabe) has survived the dangers of covering the Afghan war, but in this collection of essays she turns her attention toward a different kind of struggle—raising three children in the trenches of Manhattan. Her opening essay, The Bleeping Bleep Next Door, arguably the funniest in the book, details the birth of her third baby and the experience of sharing a hospital room with a 16-year-old unwed mother who blasts the TV and is visited by a gaggle of noisy teen friends toting McDonald's bags and soda that smells of booze. In other essays the author delves into life as mother of a child star (her aspiring actor son nabs a part in the new Star Trek film), the ups and downs of children's friendships, the rules and bylaws of marriage and the hassles of juggling the needs of a toddler and a teen. Kogan also explores the judgmental reactions of other parents who raise their eyebrows when she picks up her daughter at school on a Vespa. While most of Kogan's essays are witty and smart, a few (about old college roommates, and former boyfriends, etc.) seem both gratuitous and out of place. Still, readers will find plenty to ponder and laugh about as they follow this self-described laissez-faire parent on the challenging assignment of raising three kids. (Aug.)
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Review
Brave, funny, and charged with equal measures of regret and joy, Kogan's parenting misadventures spring from the page. Though her battles with smothering or totally deranged moms take place in nanny-ridden Manhattan (a world she and her husband can't afford), her stories will resonate with anyone who ever changed a diaper or comforted a weeping child.--Tad Friend, author of Lost in Mongolia: Travels in Hollywood and Other Foreign Lands and Cheerful Money: Me, My Family
Deborah Copaken Kogan goes where no mom has gone before in these hilarious and affecting tales of motherhood and marriage, Manhattan style.--Darren Star, writer and producer of Sex and the City
Deborah Copaken Kogan writes with verve, warmth, and passion about the complexities of parenting, her love for her children, and all the comedies and melodramas that the complexities and the love together make us perform.--Adam Gopnik, author of Paris To The Moon and Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
For anyone who's ever been a parent, had a parent, or wanted to choke a parent, Deborah Copaken Kogan's book is for you. With obscenely funny and frighteningly dead-on insights, this book is so close to my heart I want to put it in a locket and wear it around my neck. I plan to buy Hell Is Other Parents by the carton and hand it out at the playground.--Julie Klam, author of Please Excuse My Daughter
This is the stuff of life. Okay, maybe not the stuff of your life, but luckily for us, though maybe not always for Deborah Copaken Kogan, it is the stuff of her life, and she has made it delightful stuff to read about.--Patty Marx, who is not a parent so don't blame her; author of Him Her Him Again The End of Him
About the Author
Deborah Copaken Kogan worked as a photojournalist from 1988 to 1992, and her photographs appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, L'Express, Liberation and Geo, among many other international newspapers and magazines. She spent the next six years in TV journalism, including a time as a producer for Dateline NBC. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times and elsewhere. She is a Harvard alumna. She lives in New York City with her husband, Paul Kogan, and their three children.
