A sharp, funny, delightfully unhinged collection of stories set in the dark world of domesticity, American Housewife features murderous ladies who lunch, celebrity treasure hunters, and the best bra fitter south of the Mason Dixon line.Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it''s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it''s a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop. Vicious, fresh, and nutty as a poisoned Goo Goo Cluster, American Housewife is an uproarious, pointed commentary on womanhood.

"I loved it." —Ann Patchett The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady.Helen Ellis has a mantra: "If you don''t have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way." Say "weathered" instead of "she looks like a cake left out in the rain." Say "early-developed" instead of "brace face and B cups." And for the love of Coke Salad, always say "Sorry you saw something that offended you" instead of "Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants." In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women."Ellis' prose is filled with so many laugh lines, you might want to go ahead and book the Botox.” —NPRWhen Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids, lost parents and lost jobs, powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges, dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year, and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around.In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen."A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans. This book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women."Ellis' prose is filled with so many laugh lines, you might want to go ahead and book the Botox.” —NPRWhen Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids, lost parents and lost jobs, powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges, dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year, and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around.In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen."A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans. This book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

Meet the women of American Housewife…  They smoke their eyes and paint their lips. They channel Beyoncé while doing household chores. They drown their sorrows with Chanel No. 5 and host book clubs where chardonnay trumps Charles Dickens. They redecorate. And they are quietly capable of kidnapping, breaking and entering, and murder.  These women know the rules of a well-lived life: replace your tights every winter, listen to erotic audio books while you scrub the bathroom floor, serve what you want to eat at your dinner parties, and accept it: you’re too old to have more than one drink and sleep through the night. Vicious, fresh and darkly hilarious, American Housewife is a collection of stories for anyone who has ever wondered what really goes on behind the façades of the housewives of America…  ‘Surreal tales of American weirdness, with details that ring all too true. Ouch, I say at times. At other times, yikes’ Margaret Atwood, Guardian Best Books of the Year  ‘I tore through it. It’s MAD. Utterly mad but brilliant’ Louise O’Neill  ‘Each perfect little story is a fine chocolate, laced with arsenic. Wickedly funny, painfully truthful’ Erin Kelly  ‘After reading American Housewife, I'm convinced Dorothy Parker faked her death and is alive and writing under the pen name “Helen Ellis”. Witty, lacerating, and sometimes touching, this book is a salty assortment of surprises, each more delicious than the last. Savor it with a dry martini’ Deanna Raybourn

The debut novel from the author of Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge, a fast-paced and unforgettable reinvention of Southern gothic set in Alabama.In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, beauty is as beauty does, with axes and knives and killer smiles. Sarina Summers and her mother will stop at nothing to have it all. Nicole Hicks harbors a fierce obsession with Sarina, which repeatedly undermines Mrs. Hicks’s ambitious goals. Bitty Jack Carlson, a nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks, is caught in the crossfire but struggles to succeed outside the confines of this outrageous yet eerily familiar Southern community. It’s survival of the fittest. Which girl will come out on top? Eating the Cheshire Cat lures readers into a world of perfectly planned parties and steep social ladders, where traditional rites of passage take unpredictable and horrifying turns as the dreams of three girls and their overbearing mothers collide. Traipsing from summer camp to the University of Alabama’s Homecoming game, this fast-paced and unforgettable novel will keep readers guessing until the bitter end.

Autistic people often feel they have to present as neurotypical or perform neurotypical social behaviours in order to fit in. So-called 'masking' is a social survival strategy used by autistic people in situations where neurodiversity is not understood or welcomed. While this is a commonly observed phenomenon in the autistic community, the complexities of masking are still not widely understood.This book combines the latest research with personal case studies detailing autistic experiences of masking. It explains what masking is and the various strategies used to mask in social situations. The research also delves into the psychology behind masking and the specifics of masking at school, at social events with peers, and at work. The book looks at the consequences of masking, including the toll it can have on mental and physical health, and suggests guidance for family, professionals, and employers to ameliorate negative effects. With a diverse range of voices, including perspectives across gender, ethnicity and age, this is the comprehensive guide to masking and how to support autistic people who mask.

Autistic people often feel they have to present as neurotypical or perform neurotypical social behaviours in order to fit in. So-called 'masking' is a social survival strategy used by autistic people in situations where neurodiversity is not understood or welcomed. While this is a commonly observed phenomenon in the autistic community, the complexities of masking are still not widely understood.This book combines the latest research with personal case studies detailing autistic experiences of masking. It explains what masking is and the various strategies used to mask in social situations. The research also delves into the psychology behind masking and the specifics of masking at school, at social events with peers, and at work. The book looks at the consequences of masking, including the toll it can have on mental and physical health, and suggests guidance for family, professionals, and employers to ameliorate negative effects. With a diverse range of voices, including perspectives across gender, ethnicity and age, this is the comprehensive guide to masking and how to support autistic people who mask.

A sharp, funny, delightfully unhinged collection of stories set in the dark world of domesticity, American Housewife features murderous ladies who lunch, celebrity treasure hunters, and the best bra fitter south of the Mason Dixon line.Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it''s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it''s a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop. Vicious, fresh, and nutty as a poisoned Goo Goo Cluster, American Housewife is an uproarious, pointed commentary on womanhood.

"I loved it." —Ann Patchett The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady.Helen Ellis has a mantra: "If you don''t have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way." Say "weathered" instead of "she looks like a cake left out in the rain." Say "early-developed" instead of "brace face and B cups." And for the love of Coke Salad, always say "Sorry you saw something that offended you" instead of "Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants." In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women."Ellis' prose is filled with so many laugh lines, you might want to go ahead and book the Botox.” —NPRWhen Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids, lost parents and lost jobs, powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges, dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year, and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around.In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen."A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans. This book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with an “inspiring, hilarious, straight-to-the-point” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women."Ellis' prose is filled with so many laugh lines, you might want to go ahead and book the Botox.” —NPRWhen Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids, lost parents and lost jobs, powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges, dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year, and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around.In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen."A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans. This book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

Meet the women of American Housewife…  They smoke their eyes and paint their lips. They channel Beyoncé while doing household chores. They drown their sorrows with Chanel No. 5 and host book clubs where chardonnay trumps Charles Dickens. They redecorate. And they are quietly capable of kidnapping, breaking and entering, and murder.  These women know the rules of a well-lived life: replace your tights every winter, listen to erotic audio books while you scrub the bathroom floor, serve what you want to eat at your dinner parties, and accept it: you’re too old to have more than one drink and sleep through the night. Vicious, fresh and darkly hilarious, American Housewife is a collection of stories for anyone who has ever wondered what really goes on behind the façades of the housewives of America…  ‘Surreal tales of American weirdness, with details that ring all too true. Ouch, I say at times. At other times, yikes’ Margaret Atwood, Guardian Best Books of the Year  ‘I tore through it. It’s MAD. Utterly mad but brilliant’ Louise O’Neill  ‘Each perfect little story is a fine chocolate, laced with arsenic. Wickedly funny, painfully truthful’ Erin Kelly  ‘After reading American Housewife, I'm convinced Dorothy Parker faked her death and is alive and writing under the pen name “Helen Ellis”. Witty, lacerating, and sometimes touching, this book is a salty assortment of surprises, each more delicious than the last. Savor it with a dry martini’ Deanna Raybourn

The debut novel from the author of Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge, a fast-paced and unforgettable reinvention of Southern gothic set in Alabama.In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, beauty is as beauty does, with axes and knives and killer smiles. Sarina Summers and her mother will stop at nothing to have it all. Nicole Hicks harbors a fierce obsession with Sarina, which repeatedly undermines Mrs. Hicks’s ambitious goals. Bitty Jack Carlson, a nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks, is caught in the crossfire but struggles to succeed outside the confines of this outrageous yet eerily familiar Southern community. It’s survival of the fittest. Which girl will come out on top? Eating the Cheshire Cat lures readers into a world of perfectly planned parties and steep social ladders, where traditional rites of passage take unpredictable and horrifying turns as the dreams of three girls and their overbearing mothers collide. Traipsing from summer camp to the University of Alabama’s Homecoming game, this fast-paced and unforgettable novel will keep readers guessing until the bitter end.

Autistic people often feel they have to present as neurotypical or perform neurotypical social behaviours in order to fit in. So-called 'masking' is a social survival strategy used by autistic people in situations where neurodiversity is not understood or welcomed. While this is a commonly observed phenomenon in the autistic community, the complexities of masking are still not widely understood.This book combines the latest research with personal case studies detailing autistic experiences of masking. It explains what masking is and the various strategies used to mask in social situations. The research also delves into the psychology behind masking and the specifics of masking at school, at social events with peers, and at work. The book looks at the consequences of masking, including the toll it can have on mental and physical health, and suggests guidance for family, professionals, and employers to ameliorate negative effects. With a diverse range of voices, including perspectives across gender, ethnicity and age, this is the comprehensive guide to masking and how to support autistic people who mask.

Autistic people often feel they have to present as neurotypical or perform neurotypical social behaviours in order to fit in. So-called 'masking' is a social survival strategy used by autistic people in situations where neurodiversity is not understood or welcomed. While this is a commonly observed phenomenon in the autistic community, the complexities of masking are still not widely understood.This book combines the latest research with personal case studies detailing autistic experiences of masking. It explains what masking is and the various strategies used to mask in social situations. The research also delves into the psychology behind masking and the specifics of masking at school, at social events with peers, and at work. The book looks at the consequences of masking, including the toll it can have on mental and physical health, and suggests guidance for family, professionals, and employers to ameliorate negative effects. With a diverse range of voices, including perspectives across gender, ethnicity and age, this is the comprehensive guide to masking and how to support autistic people who mask.