The Upside of Irrationality- The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

“Seriously Funny.” — The Mirror (UK) Book of the Week The funniest and most original import from Britain since Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Jo Brand’s The More You Ignore Me manages to be both poignant and darkly comic at the same time. Actress and comedienne Brand—well known to viewers in the States from her work in Absolutely Fabulous —delivers an outrageous coming-of-age story in the tradition of the Adrian Mole novels, full of dysfunctional family life and celebrity obsession in the 1980s. A genuinely funny and original novel about mental illness, growing up, and celebrity obsession from much-loved comedienne Jo Brand. Little Alice's family, tucked away in a cottage in the deepest part of Herefordshire, England, is more than a bit weird. Her mother, Gina, is obsessed with the weatherman on the local news, and when she climbs onto the roof'naked'with her daughter's pet guinea pig in her arms, she is whisked off to the local psychiatric hospital posthaste. Keith, Alice's father, tries to keep calm, but his patience is being severely tested by his in-laws, whose disturbed behavior terrifies the community. Alice is convinced she needs five personalities to cope because a mother-daughter reconciliation seems damned near impossible. And at this point, the stage may be set for even more heartbreak than Alice can imagine "When Alice's mother is admitted to a mental institution after some nude rooftop antics, Alice's father is left to cope with disturbed in-laws and Alice to wonder if she is ever going to experience normalcy"--Novelist