Catastrophic Happiness

Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years

By: Catherine Newman

Narrated by: Catherine Newman

Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

A comic and heartwarming memoir about childhood's second act from Real Simple journalist Catherine Newman.

Much is written about children's infancy and toddler years, which is good, since children will never remember those times themselves. It is ages four to 14 that make up the second act, as Catherine Newman puts it in this delightfully candid, outlandishly funny new memoir about the years that "your children will remember as childhood".

Following Newman's son and daughter as they blossom from preschoolers into teenagers, Catastrophic Happiness is about the bittersweet joy of raising children and the ever-evolving landscape of issues parents traverse. In a laugh-out-loud, heart-wrenching, relatable voice, Newman narrates events as momentous as grief and as quietly moving as the moonlit face of a sleeping child. From tantrums and friendship to fear and even sex, Newman's fresh take will appeal to any parent riding this same roller coaster of laughter and heartbreak.

©2016 Catherine Newman (P)2016 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"The poignancy, mania, and hilarity of parenthood drenches this delicious book. Catherine Newman divulges more than her own maternal peaks and valleys - she offers us a way of looking at our own precious day-to-day. This book is flat-out honest, and it teems with humor and sweetness." (Amity Gaige, author of Schroder)

" Catastrophic Happiness is everything I could have hoped it might be. Reading it, I kept wanting to throw a fist in the air and scream, THANK YOU CATHERINE! I had the strangest and most wonderful feeling that she had climbed inside my head and knew exactly what I needed to hear." (Molly Wizenberg, author of Orangette blog and the books A Homemade Life and Delancey)

"A gorgeous love letter to parenting. Nobody beats Catherine Newman for cracking you up while breaking your heart - and somehow teaching the wise things you always meant to learn along the way." (Katherine Center, author of Happiness for Beginners)