Laura & Emma

By: Kate Greathead

Narrated by: Madeleine Maby

“Masterly deftness, funny sentence by funny sentence...a moving and intricately braided story of two mothers.” —Jonathan Franzen, The Guardian

This “beguiling, addictive read” (People, Book of the Week) and Belletrist Book Club pick about a blue-blooded single mother raising her daughter in rarefied New York City is a “carefully observed family story [that] rings true to life” (The New York Times Book Review).

Laura hails from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, born into old money, drifting aimlessly into her early thirties. One weekend in 1981 she meets a man. The two sleep together. He vanishes. And Laura realizes she’s pregnant.

Enter: Emma.

“Unputdownable” (Library Journal) and “wryly observed” (Vogue), Laura & Emma follows Laura as she raises Emma in New York City over the next fifteen years. With wit and compassion, Kate Greathead explores the many flaws and quirks that make us human. Laura’s story hosts a cast of effervescent and original characters, including her eccentric mother, who informs her society friends and Emma herself that she was fathered by a Swedish sperm donor; her brother, whose childhood stutter reappears in the presence of their forbidding father; an exceptionally kind male pediatrician; and her overbearing best friend, whose life has followed the Park Avenue script in every way except for childbearing.

“Kate Greathead’s debut novel gamely takes on class conflict, single motherhood, and the discreet pretension of the 1980s Upper East Side” (New York magazine) and is a “layered story about mothers and daughters and identity” (Entertainment Weekly). Told in vignettes whose every “restrained and understated sentence has been polished to glittering brightness” (Vox), Laura & Emma is “an incisive comedy of manners about class divides and the ‘burdens’ of being born privileged” (Esquire) and “a thoughtful novel of trying to find oneself despite an assigned place in the world” (Publishers Weekly).

Enjoyable

I enjoyed learning about the relationship between Laura and Emma as they grew together over time.

disappointing

Boring. Plot went nowhere. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. The performance may have made it worse.

Kept listening because the story was interesting

...and I loved the prose, but I didn't like any of the characters, though some were at least interesting and/or amusing.

Laura was a weird combo. Socially inept, asexual, sort of Aspergery, but would sometimes have insightful observations.

Emma was so whiney I could barely stand it. The audio performer made it worse. In the end (as an older teenager), I could relate to her. But by then it was too late.

And the ending? An unsatisfying ending can ruin a book you like. A book you only think is ok? I just shook my head. I don't mind ambiguous (which it was), but this ending was just plain...stupid.

Not great

The story lacks character development. If you want to dive into a story of privilege and hear how the 1% live - this is for you.

Enjoyable but forgetful.

I listened to this book while I walked in the evenings. It was entertaining enough to get through it.