Natural Disaster

A Novel

By: Lisa Owens

Narrated by: Katherine Parkinson

One perfect day. A million catastrophes.

For weeks she has been saying it will be their special day. One last, perfect day with her children before she returns to work after maternity leave. What’s the worst that can happen?

Unfolding across 24 hours, Natural Disaster is a propulsive, funny and sharply observed novel about the absurd, frustrating, hilarious, precarious, bittersweet, sometimes astonishing challenge—literal, existential—of being a woman, a mother, a wife, a person for one single, entire day.

A high-octane Mrs. Dalloway for our hectic times, Natural Disaster is “a thunderously good novel—the kind that makes you rock with laughter, shed a genuine tear, and immediately think of which friends you’re going to lend it to first.” (Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall)

Critic reviews

“I absolutely loved it...A forensic, agonizingly relatable account of the highs and lows and in-betweens of one whole ordinary day in a life with two small children. Funny, dark, absurd, pin-sharp, insightful, propulsive, unputdownable.”—Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina

“Lisa Owens lays bare the pains, perils, and joys of motherhood, all captured over the course of a single day. Hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating.”—Monica Alli, author of Love Marriage

"A profoundly relatable novel, Natural Disaster captures the joy amid the tedium of caretaking. Interrogating her heroine’s fears and neuroses, Owens offers refreshing insights into motherhood, marriage, and what it means to be a family."—Emily Adrian, author of Seduction Theory

“Eminently readable, recognizable, and reassuring. I read this in a day. One Dalloway-esque day, a million catastrophes, the intense highs and lows of being a mother, a partner, a woman in this world. It's fantastic.”—Jessie Burton, author of The House of Fortune

“Brilliant, hilarious, gut-punchingly truth-telling.”—Emily Itami, author of Fault Lines

“Lisa Owens mines gold from the smallest details of life. Natural Disaster is a thunderously good novel—the kind that makes you rock with laughter, shed a genuine tear, and immediately think of which friends you're going to lend it to first.”—Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall

“If you have ever spent a difficult hour—let alone a difficult day—with young children, I promise you that you will LOVE Natural Disaster. It's hilarious and honest and so astute about the quotidian frustrations of motherhood and marriage. There were times I wondered if Lisa had somehow managed to get inside my head and read my thoughts. It's a blisteringly good read.”—Hannah Beckerman, author of If Only I Could Tell You