Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Hey Yeah Right Get A Life

Helen Simpson's third collection is a bold, honest exploration of the trials and the rewards of motherhood.

‘Her stories are - for those who, like me, recognise the truth in every word - like a reprieve... Sharp, poetic and marvellously witty’ Kate Kellaway, Observer

Here are tales of a highflyer stuck at an interminable Burns Night celebration, increasingly aware of the babysitter waiting for her at home; an exhausted mother longing for adult conversation but whose son unwittingly precludes it; and a teenage girl whose fraught encounter with a harried mum of one brings newfound appreciation for her own capable mother of four. Most strikingly of all we meet Dorrie, whose efforts to calm her tinderbox of a family leave her struggling to contain her own emotions.

Hey Yeah Right Get a Life is a singular achievement: relatable, perceptive and utterly poignant.

‘It's a brilliant, painful, funny and courageous book’ Esther Freud, Guardian

It's a brilliant, painful, funny and courageous book

Esther Freud, Guardian

About Helen Simpson

Helen Simpson's sixth short-story collection, Cockfosters, follows Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000), Constitutional (2005) and In-Flight Entertainment (2010). A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories (2012) includes five stories from each of her first five collections. She has received the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. She lives in London.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • ISBN: 9780099284222
  • Length: 192 pages
  • Dimensions: 198mm x 13mm x 129mm
  • Weight: 138g
  • Price: £12.99
All editions