Amateur Hour
“Thought-provoking and memorable. Amateur Hour . . . will stay with you for a long, long time.”
—The New York Times Book Review
An emotionally honest, arresting, and funny collection of essays about motherhood and adulthood.
Welcome to essayist Kimberly Harrington’s poetic and funny world of motherhood, womanhood, and humanhood, not necessarily in that order. It’s a place of loud parenting, fierce loving, and too much social media. With accessibility and wit, she captures the emotions around parenthood in artful and earnest ways, highlighting this time in the middle—midlife, the middle years of childhood, how women are stuck in the middle of so much. It’s a place of elation, exhaustion, and time whipping past at warp speed. And, finally, it’s a quiet space to consider the girl you were, the mother you are, and the woman you are always becoming.
“A wry collection of essays and humor pieces that tackle the subject of parenthood with honesty and self-awareness.”
—The Cut
"Amateur Hour careens from the hilarious to the poignant, eliciting nods of recognition, fists of outrage and many moments of bemusement and reflection. If your throat isn’t constricted, heart not cracked by the end of it, you may consider checking if you have a pulse."
—Associated Press
"More concerned with brutal honesty than keeping up appearances, [Harrington] bares all in frank prose covering everything from senior pictures to her deep-seated desire for more family fights—and isn’t afraid to dish it out, either."
—Ms. Magazine
"This funny, angry, and moving essay collection from Harrington considers life for women dealing with motherhood, work, marriage, self-image, expectations, ambition, fatigue, and everything else. All of the topics covered are familiar, but Harrington’s approach to them is singular."
—Publishers Weekly
“Selling this book as a book about motherhood would sell it short. No piece in this collection of short vignettes is much like another. Chapters will make readers rotate through laughter, tears, and cringing, and are all written with refreshingly honest and bold abandon.”