Frumpy Middle-Aged Mom: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Motherhood

(Paperback)

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Never mind the Real Housewives of Orange CountyMarla Jo Fisher is the woman everyone can relate to, complete with bad parenting, rotten dogs, ill health, and fashion faux pas. For nearly two decades, in the Orange County Register and many syndicated papers, readers have delighted in Marla Jos subversive humor, cranky intellect, and huge heart on her journey through broke, single, after-40 motherhood, when she adopted Cheetah Boy and Curly Girl, to her oddball adventures around the globe, to the sublime ridiculousness of life next door. Even while facing a devastating diagnosis, Fisher teaches us that humor is the balm that eases and the very thing that binds us together.

Reviews

"If you've ever heard yourself say, 'No officer, that is not my son, or had to explain to your kids that Led Zeppelin is not a mineral, Fisher is your kind of gal. Even if you've never said either of those things, Fisher is still your gal. This book has laughs on every page, and as a parent of teenagers, I desperately needed every one. I loved it!" W. Bruce Cameron, New York Timesbestselling author of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter "Now I know why mothering should come with an instruction manual. Marla Jo's take on being single with children is pure geniusand I know genius." Cathryn Michon, bestselling author of The Grrl Genius Guide to Life If you miss the real, everyday-life observations of Roseanne (which I do), you will welcome Fisher's true and hilarious new book. In fact, you'll probably devour it like a double-stuffed Oreo. Chris Erskine, humorist and author of Daditude and Lavender in Your Lemonade Marla Fisher, aka the Frumpy Middle-Aged Mom, writes us into adventures so real we cannot help but be carried along. Her piercing descriptions of places and people evoke the work of Mark Twain if he were alive today and living in Orange County, California. Her writing style sails across the page, though I find myself occasionally having to pause to giggle over something hilarious before I can continue reading. As a comedian, I appreciate laughter when someone else serves it to me, and Marla is a brilliant hostess of humor. Her book is a feast for us all. Vicki Barbolak, comedian and television personality

Author Bio

Marla Jo Fisher writes the Frumpy Middle-Aged Mom column, which runs in eleven of the Southern California News Group's newspapers, including the Orange County Register. She was a workaholic newspaper reporter before adopting two children out of foster care at age 46, picking up a scruffy dog along the way, and she has somehow managed to keep them all alive. A former award-winning investigative reporter, Fisher now juggles her job as a newspaper columnist with being a single mom, all the while being exhorted from everywhere to be thinner, smarter, sexier, better exercised, more philanthropic, more frugal, more stylish, more devoted to her kids, more devoted to her job, better dressed, a healthier cook, a tidier housekeeper, and a more engaged citizen. Fishers columns and travel articles have also appeared in many newspapers and websites nationwide, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Deseret News, Wichita Eagle, Waterbury Republican-American, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sacramento Bee, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Charlotte Observer.