I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother / by Allison Pearson

Kate Reddy has to work very hard to keep her life how she wants it. A hedge-fund manager for one of London's leading brokerage firms, she's also a wife to a loving husband, also a corporate executive, and mother to two small beautiful but sometimes bratty children. That her mind is forever toggling between accounts, deadlines, foreign clients and bake sale cookies, show-and-tell projects and doctor's check-ups is a given. But she's someone who can do it. She's not like her friends (quitters) who've forsaken the rat race for homemaking and are no longer the 'friends' they used to be. And while she misses out on a few details here or there and might have bypass small engagements or miss a recital in the course of a work week, Kate feels she devotes the attention she needs to each facet of her world. Of course there are times when she truly hates her life, her husband and her kids (who are in the care part-time nanny much of the day, but still) for their very existence. Yet overall she needs the stress and, in a strange way, she likes the challenge and will readily admit to not imagining doing anything else.

So this book has kind of the same exact story as countless others already weighing down the shelves--modern working woman dramatizes her issues. But Pearson, author of I Think I Love You about pop culture-addict teenagers in the seventies, entertains her audience with some fairly humorous anecdotes and add-ons ("Any working mother who says she doesn't bribe her kids can add Liar to her résumé."; or, when speaking of her daughter's reaction to her out-of-town business trips, "Mummy's return is always a cue for an intricate sequence of snubs and punishments."). At least for a little while. Unfortunately Kate's narrative is only amusing for so long as the reader gets to know her character--a headstrong but vulnerable, resourceful yet forgetful, devoted though libertine twenty-first century woman--because the story doesn't really offer any kind of change-up. Things bog down a little in the second half by which time Kate's little introspections seem more like whining than gibing and her oh-so-busy-and-hectic life ceases to impress anyone. (FIC PEARSON)

THE GREATEST TELEVISION SERIES EVER.

BBC The Office (DVD) 2001-2003 / a Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant production; starring Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook and Lucy Davis

David Brent likes to think of himself as a friend first and boss second ("probably an entertainer third"). As regional manager of the Slough branch of the Wernham-Hogg paper merchants where the BBC are currently shooting a documentary, David lets it be known that he likes a workplace where people can "have a laugh at work whilst getting the job done" because of course "you can't put a price on comedy". But though he believes everyone thinks he's hilarious and great fun to be around, it's obvious office employees find him utterly unfunny, rude and frequently offensive--opinions to which he remains largely oblivious in spite of his generally attention-grabbing habits. Observed regularly is Brent's consistent need to be recognized as a worldly renaissance man skilled in many areas, most particularly humor where he believes himself to be a remarkably funny comedian even though his material is invariably unoriginal, usually consisting of poor impressions and worn-out routines borrowed from old TV shows. Also ever-conscious of the cameras throughout the documentary, Brent rarely misses an opportunity to promote himself, seeming especially keen to be depicted as a progressive-minded, politically correct individual despite the fact he often directs derogatory comments at minorities, the disabled and the third world poor. His frequent faux-pas, always awkward and cringe-inducing, are rarely ill-intended however; rather they're derived from extreme ignorance and a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, incidents usually exascerbated by inept attempts at a follow-up apology.

Brent's high need for affirmation and bad practical joking (in front of a new employee he pretends to fire his secretary for supposedly stealing post-it notes bringing her to tears) is only eclipsed by the sycophantic, slightly neurotic habits of Gareth Keenan. A sales clerk and assistant (to the) regional manager who seems to have an unhealthy obsession with workplace rules, Gareth never fails to volunteer his services for generally thankless duties. Also a former soldier, Gareth believes (falsely) that his military background and self-assumed titles like being "team leader" give him authority over his coworkers, most notably Tim Canterbury his deskmate, who simply refuses to acknowledge any percieved authority Gareth claims to have. Disillusioned with life and bored at work, Tim, a sales rep, gets a kick out of poking fun at Gareth's eccentricities and juvenile hang-ups through equally juvenile hijinks like putting a stapler inside jello, prank-calling his gun-holstered cellphone and building a dividing wall out of cardboard boxes. One person who can't help laughing at Tim's little jokes and his all-around fun-loving nature is receptionist Dawn Tinsley who's only working a Wernham Hogg because her fiance Lee works in the warehouse. The other employees simply take things day by day, awkwardly enduring David Brent's incorrigible antics and hoping things get better.

There are several reasons why this is THE GREATEST TELEVISION SERIES EVER. The main one is Ricky Gervais, whose late 1990's vision to create a new type of anti-convention sitcom comedy was and remains something of an extraordinary triumph. Together with associate producer and writing partner Stephen Merchant, the pair held firmly to their goal of creating a TV series unlike any other--a show devoted to the wholly inconspicuous humor of the pathetic. The funniest jokes as well as the most poignant bits in "The Office" are never recognized as such on camera; not even so much as a hint of this-is-the-joke-we're-doing-now is ever conveyed for viewer enlightenment. Nor do the supporting scenes attempt to supply any context. The almost cinema verité approach to observing the monotonous drone of everyday life in the most accurate type of fly-on-the-wall, unobtrusive manner is sublimely one of the most rewarding aspects of the show (and something you would never see on American television). Another very crucial reason for the show's sustained notoriety is the talent. "The Office" would not have succeeded the way it did without the supporting cast--specifically and exclusively Martin Freeman and McKenzie Crook. Both virtual unknowns at the time of filming, they're no longer a secret--Freeman especially whose portrayal of Tim, the proverbial 'everyman', is one of the precious few gems of television acting done right. Providing an almost alter-ego to Gervais' David Brent, the character of Tim is masterfully illuminated as the piece's rational center, ultimately balancing the show's edgy humor with enough sincerity to realize every aspect of the series' intentions. The show's run, done entirely within 14 concise episodes, is truly a masterpiece (and if you have to ask why it didn't run longer, you've missed the point entirely). Never can it be duplicated; nor should it have been replicated or imitated with such watered-down, tasteless knock-offs. (DVD OFFICE)

Then We Came to The End / by Joshua Ferris

Downsizing is causing some nasty side-effects at one Chicago advertising agency where the firings of some of the company's most tenured employees has everyone panicked. The office atmosphere, usually rife with turmoil during good times, now resembles a Hospital waiting room as a steady stream of stress, dismay and worked-up indignation force workers to find ever-more frantic ways of coping with the situation. Copywriter and quote-meister extraordinaire Tom Mota doles out daily doses of transcedentalist wisdom amidst his routine tirades while stuffy, workaholic Joe Pope's pretentious ramblings continue to provoke office pranksters towards ever-inventive ways of pulling one over on him. Meanwhile the fast-sinking Carl Garbedian tries to calm his anxiety by "borrowing" deskmate Janine Gorjanc's medication (intending to give it back as soon as he's diagnosed with what he feels is the same thing). Rumors that supervisor Lynn Mason has breast cancer inspire awkward sympathy and compassion but mostly just provide welcome gossip about the head woman herself who's now doubly overwhelmed. One by one, as workers are laid off, the entire office desperately tries to maintain some semblance of composure.

In an age when corporate satire is in vogue and humor of the pathetic is running itself into the ground, everyone is trying to get in on the joke. And while Ferris' Dibert-esque tale is somewhate original with its first-person plural narration and observant reflections, it still treads down the already-been-done path as numerous other projects featured on multiple mediums ("The Office", Office Space, The Corporation, The Informant, Personal Days: A Novel / by Ed Park, Smartest Guys in the Room, etc.). Not that the book's badly written or fated not to entertain. Readers will appreciate Ferris black humor, if not for it's originality, then for it's depiction of human nature amid a suspended crisis. (FIC FERRIS)