May Contain Nuts: A Novel of Extreme Parenting [Paperback]

John O'Farrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2005

Alice never imagined she would end up like this, so anxious after hearing about the dangers of meteorites that she makes her children wear bike helmets in the wading pool. Her husband, David, has taught their four-year-old to list every animal represented in Prokofiev’sPeter and the Wolf. But the more they push their children, the more things there are to worry about. It seems no amount of gluten rationing or herbal teas can improve their children’s intellectual development, and as Alice’s eldest child looks set to fail her entrance exam for the exclusive private school on which her parents have pinned all their hopes, Alice decides to take matters into her own hands. With a baseball cap pulled low over her face, Alice shuffles into a hall of two hundred kids and takes the test in place of her daughter, her first examination in twenty years. With a comic eye for detail that has sent his books to the top of the British best-seller lists,May Contain Nutsis a funny, compelling, and provocative satire of the manic world of today’s overcompetitive, overprotective families.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

O'Farrell (This Is Your Life) is a big deal in Britain: joke writer for Blair; columns in the Guardian and the Independent; various sitcom-writing successes. In his fourth novel, Alice and David Chaplin live in south London with three young children and two conflicting obsessions: parenting their children to greatness, and shielding them from harm. Related from Alice's first-person perspective, this shrill mix produces a particularly hilarious and harebrained scheme: to protect daughter Molly from rejection by the local elite private school (and to get her in), Alice, conveniently petite and noncurvaceous, will masquerade as Molly and sit for the test. Some riotously funny situations result, with Alice deadpanning and kibitzing the whole way. Perfectly named "friends" Philip and Ffion prove perfect foils again and again, as the parents compare (precisely: Ffion e-mails an elaborate chart) their children's achievements. There are some downsides: neuroses are simply stated as fact and then slapsticked, while larger issues like urban decay and racial profiling are raised but not addressed. What O'Farrell does accomplish is a near-flawless caricature of 21st-century upper-middle-class parenthood.
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About the Author

John O'Farrell is the author of two bestselling novels, THE BEST A MAN CAN GET and THIS IS YOUR LIFE, and the bestselling memoir THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER. His name has flashed past at the end of such productions as SPITTING IMAGE, HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU and CHICKEN RUN. He writes a weekly column in the Guardian and a collection of his journalism was recently published as GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT. He lives in London with his wife and two children. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat (October 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802170153
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170156
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars LOVED IT!, November 11, 2005

By 

Maria Wong "Bostonian Reader" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: May Contain Nuts: A Novel of Extreme Parenting (Paperback)

This book was so entertaining that I finished it in two days (an incredible feat considering I have two very young children). A satirical portrayal of modern parenting, but seriously reflects the lengths of what many elitist families would do to get their kids the "right" academic beginning. I particularly enjoyed this book because many of O'Farrell's characters actually live in my neighborhood. The ending was bit abrupt and unrealistically tidy (could a real Alice, who went through such lengths to get her daughter into a top independent school truly embrace the notion of her daughter being in a public school in just several months???), but it was a fun read nonetheless.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book for Teachers, Too!, April 6, 2006

By 

K. S. Callison "New Teacher" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: May Contain Nuts: A Novel of Extreme Parenting (Paperback)

I usually don't read satire, but as a new teacher this book was almost therapeutic in its attacks on obsessive middle-class mums (the British ones are not much different from the American ones). It's also a thoughtful novel about school choice: What's best for your child vs. What's best for you. May Contain Nuts even deals with status quo in terms of race and socio-economics.
Very funny and very reflective.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Humorous Must Read for the Ever Growing Number of Cotton Wool Kid Parents Out There, December 18, 2006

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: May Contain Nuts (Hardcover)

If you've ever overheard cotton wool kid parents talking to each other about how their fat little kids can't possibly walk or ride a bike to school because they might get abducted, or seen these parents in action first hand for yourself walking down the road with dog leads attached to their kids then you'll realise this book could really be a work of non fiction and that's what makes it even more brilliant.

In this book Alice and David are two of these paranoid middle class British parents, particularly the mother Alice. They force their daughter Molly and their other kids to undertake a rigorous schedule of activities, study and practice exams so they'll get into the right pre school, primary and high schools otherwise they'll have no possible chance of getting into the best universities and avoid being prostitutes, drug users and the like. They fear walking down to their local video store as those black kids in the hooded tops will obviously rob them or worse. Their group of friends aren't any different, reading the labels on food and not allowing their kids to eat anything that may contain traces of nuts just on the off chance their kids may be allergic. Even within these tailored activities such as a running race they force these kids to wear dog leads so they can protect them just in case that dog on the other side of the park happens to come over and kill their children.

These are the cotton wool kid parents, and they see nothing wrong with their behaviour. So the pressure is on for Molly to get into the snobby school Chelsea College but her parents soon come to realise there is a good chance she may not make the cut. They know they must take drastic action, they know Alice must be pretend to be Molly and take the test in her place.

May Contain Nuts is a great read, predictable outcome but the fun is in getting there as Alice starts to realise just how ridiculous her beliefs are!