Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me

Praise for Karen Karbo

Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me

       
•
  
A
New York Times
Notable Book

Is there any aspect to being a mom—stretch marks, fat sagging over the top of the elastic waistband, baby spit-up everywhere—that Erma Bombeck hasn't already trampled into the ground? Fortunately, yes. Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me should be clutched to the “corn-silo-sized” breasts of every new mother.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

If Carrie Fisher wrote with depth as well as wit, she would probably turn out to be Karen Karbo.

THE SEATTLE TIMES

The subject of pregnancy and motherhood so easily lends itself to laughter, though it has taken a novel as good as Karbo's to remind us of that fact. But the beauty of her book is that underneath the lightness is a deeper, moving truth that never lapses into sentimentality. She's our Erma Bombeck—a funny, uncensored chronicler of what happens after the fairy tale ends and life begins.

WHITNEY OTTO, author of
Eight Girls Taking Pictures

In order to transcend the monolithic mommy story you have to reach down in there and wrestle it away from the mouth of American culture. Karen Karbo's
Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me
does the hard work of giving our bodies and lives back to us. If you are any kind of mother, like me, or if your own mother is part of your life story, read this book. I wish Dr. Spock would have.

LIDIA YUKNAVITCH, author of
The Chronology of Water

Karbo (
The Diamond Lane
) is at her best writing tongue-in-cheek riffs on sports and modern life and manages a successful marriage of the two in her sassy, satirical new novel. (She) relishes her characters' war stories of pregnancy and labor; the novel, without taking itself too seriously, proves in its cheeky details a fun (and accurate) sendup of the timeless trials of womanhood.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me
is a funny, wise novel about more than simply gender. Karbo uses her wonderful narrative voice and her penetrating wit to find her way to the universal secrets of the self.

ROBERT OLEN BUTLER, author of
A Small Hotel

[A] witty and astringent take on motherhood, crackles with insights and humor.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Brilliant! The righteous, thoroughly American Karen Karbo delivers a swift kick in the kegels to those sappy
What to Expect When You're Expecting
moms in her funny and appallingly honest novel
Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me.

VANITY FAIR

Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life

I want to make wallpaper out of this original and beautiful book just so I can have Karbo's unparalleled wit and wisdom always on hand.

CHERYL STRAYED, author of
Wild

[A]nyone with even the slightest interest in cooking and pop culture may find it hard to resist this series of epigrammatic guidelines for living large, especially when they come from a master at doing just that.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Karbo's Kick Ass books follow a unique structural blend of biography and advice-giving. When you read
Julia Child Rules,
you not only learn more about Julia's fascinating life, you come away feeling as though you can be a little bit like Julia too.

GLAMOUR

A lighthearted trek through a food icon's life, studded with satisfying tips for modern living.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

This intriguing book is about how Julia Child became an icon, and Karbo attributes Child's success to her unique view on life. Here, through a fun and engaging set of rules, Karbo instructs readers on how they can follow Julia's example and find true joy in life, too.

FOREWORD REVIEWS

Karbo's joyful take on the ebullient, self-described “California hayseed” will charm readers new to the twists and turns of Child's life, as well as devoted fans.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Julia Child Rules
is a blast.

HEADBUTLER

Out of all the other Julia Child literature that's out there, Karbo succeeds in pointing out something that should be, but isn't always, obvious to us: the way Julia lived life with abandon, first and foremost, was by not allowing her age or place in life to dictate her career.

THE BRAISER

You won't get any gushing food description here. In its place you'll find humor, a little heartbreak, and a lot of wit and grit to inspire your own inner Julia.

THE OREGONIAN

How Georgia Became O'Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living

“Georgia was a proto slacker,” writes Karbo. “There were days and weeks when she would read, spend hours tramping around outside, write letters, sew, and play dominoes. … But when Georgia worked, she worked her ass off.”

O MAGAZINE

Simply a revelation.

ELISSA SCHAPPELL,
Vanity Fair

Karen Karbo's fresh and revealing take on the epic life of Georgia O'Keeffe is both effortlessly entertaining and profoundly inspirational.

SHEILA WELLER, author of
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon

[I]ntimate, joyful, and absolutely fun biography …

JULIE METZ, author of the
New York Times
bestseller
Perfection

I want to give this book to every young woman I know who's setting out on her own in the world – not to mention the rest of us …

MEGHAN DAUM, author of
Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House

How perfect that a writer as thoughtful, original, and hilarious as Karen Karbo takes on as a subject as talented, passionate, and fearless Georgia O'Keeffe. The result is a fresh, funny, highly personalized take on “the nation's greatest woman artist,” a meticulously researched, page-turning romp through the life of a painter whose days were as bold and unique as her art.

CATHI HANAUER, author of
Sweet Ruin
and editor of
The Bitch in the House

This intimate, quirky, and sassy essay makes its iconic subject into an accessible, relevant figure with whom readers can identify.

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

[T]old with great wit and hilarity throughout. While O'Keeffe is already revered by millions of women and aspiring artists everywhere, Karbo's original, wry analysis is bound to enrich her status even further.

SHELF AWARENESS

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons From the World's Most Elegant Woman

Reading Karbo is like listening to a dear friend talk about the legendary designer over brunch. This is a fun, insightful look at the genius behind the little black dress.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Anyone with a good sense of humor should hugely enjoy, or should I say
enjoie,
Karen Karbo's funny and stylish take on Coco Chanel. Like a little black dress, this handy life guide will take you from day into evening. K.K. on C.C.:
oui, oui!

HENRY ALFORD, author of
How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They are Still on This Earth)

Karbo delivers a mini-biography, with perceptive and amusing commentary … The fashion is merely fascinating, a means to an end. The life lessons? For a woman trying to find a safe haven in America, this book delivers more wisdom – and wit – per page than Dr. Phil will dispense in a lifetime.

HEADBUTLER

Wise, witty, and refreshingly colloquial,
The Gospel According to Coco Chanel
is an enchanting tour through the complex, often controversial life of fashion icon Chanel. Filled with relevant life lessons for the modern woman, this book is Karbo at her irrepressible best.

HILARY BLACK, author of
The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money, and Relationships

How to Hepburn: Lessons On Living From Kate The Great

Karbo presents all this heterodox advice with great humor, but there's a point she's making to sister Gen-Xers: Hepburn broke all the rules women were supposed to follow and still had a fabulous life.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

These days, women in Hollywood and everywhere else are following [Hepburn's] fiercely independent lead – and
Redbook
contributing editor Karen Karbo is no exception. Her sassy new book,
How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great
explains what we can learn from the iconic leading lady, who makes most of today's heavy-hitting celebrities look pretty lightweight.

REDBOOK

Karen Karbo's
How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great
strides magnificently before our eyes, much as Hepburn did onscreen. Perhaps because Karbo's mother turned to Hepburn and not Jackie Kennedy as her 1960s household saint, Karbo goes for honesty over hagiography –and still finds much for us to emulate. And Karbo has the same appetite for a good sentence that Hepburn had for life.

MORE

… Captures Hollywood mores and largely succeeds as an homage to “Miss Hepburn.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

In an interesting blend of self-help book and star biography, novelist Karen Karbo seeks to extract lessons from the life of Katherine Hepburn.
How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great
is a fun and spunky take on the life of the star.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

An exuberant celebration of a great original.

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Karen Karbo manages to come up with some offbeat gems in her witty new book,
How to Hepburn.

USA TODAY

…A delightful, insightful little guide.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

…smart, witty and profound in a low-key way – everything you'd expect in a book by Karbo.

THE OREGONIAN

The Stuff of Life

       
•
  
A
New York Times
Notable Book

       
•
  
People Magazine
Critics' Choice

       
•
  
Books for a Better Life Award finalist

       
•
  
Winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Non-fiction

With generous honesty, Karbo describes nuanced moments of nearly excruciating tenderness, embarrassment, frustration, and love, balanced with passages of often side-splitting humor. A compulsively readable memoir about family and the writing life.

BOOKLIST

Karen Karbo is nothing if not funny, so you'll forgive her – no, you'll thank her – for not turning her chain-smoking father's death from lung cancer into a
Lifetime
movie weepfest. Instead, this bittersweet book honestly shows death to be what it is: a part of life, with all its annoyances, inequities, miseries and joys.

PEOPLE

Karbo's willingness to portray the tough business of grief and mortality in all its unmanageableness and confusion makes
The Stuff of Life
a book you want to keep reading, and laughing with, to the end.

THE SEATTLE TIMES

…The book works beautifully on many levels. A lively, insightful and astonishingly unsentimental read, it's intensely funny in places.

THE WASHINGTON POST

The Diamond Lane

       
•
  
A
New York Times
Notable Book

A flawless, page-turning story … this is a tale to treasure.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

A wonderfully comic novel about savvy Hollywood outsiders trying to get in … not only is the plot ingenious, but the writing remains deft all the way through.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

It is a testament to Karbo's skill at high comedy that the ending of this book – a funeral rather than a wedding – leaves you smiling.

THE NEW YORKER

This astringent, humorous novel tackles two subjects ripe for satire: the Hollywood movie industry and marriage – both notoriously fickle institutions requiring blind hope to sustain life.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

This kind of novel is a devil to pull off … and Ms. Karbo has done her job brilliantly.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Trespassers Welcome Here

       
•
  
A
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year

       
•
  
A
Village Voice
Top Ten Book of the Year

The Russians have come – and they're fascinating. Karbo's first novel, about Soviet émigrés in L.A., has passionate characters colliding in love, jealousy, politics, and the ongoing cold war between the sexes. An extraordinary debut that combines compassion with raucous comedy.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Copyright © 2016 Karen Karbo

Karbo, Karen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Motherhood made a man out of me / by Karen Karbo.

pages cm

ISBN 9780997068320 (eBook)

1.
  
Motherhood – Fiction. 2.
  
Pregnancy – Fiction. 3.
  
Female friendship – Fiction. I. Title.

PS3561.A584 M68 2016

813'.54–DC23

2013044757

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts

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Form
:

Adam McIsaac/Sibley House

Set in Paperback

Originally published in 2000 by Bloomsbury USA, New York

First Hawthorne Edition, 2016