Full disclosure: I’m a Moran Fan. Such is her wit and way with words that The Times columnist and novelist could be waxing lyrical about… waxing, and I’d be hooked.
In fact, hair removal was a hot topic in her previous memoir, How To Be A Woman - as was onanism and orgasms. Back then, a decade ago, having become a mum and entered her 30s, she fancied she’d got womanhood sussed.
Then she became middle aged.
Suddenly a host of dilemmas, the likes of which she’d failed to foresee, befell her: Why couldn’t she ever tick everything off her To Do list? Why was wine suddenly her enemy? And was it okay to have an about face, as it were, on getting Botox?
The lightness is leavened with a raw and gripping account of her teenage daughter’s descent into anorexia: an excoriating ordeal for an otherwise ordinary family; a baffling blow to the woman who has extolled female body positivity throughout her career and especially as a mother to her two girls.
I’m a Moran Fan because a) she’s bloody hilarious and b) when she writes, it’s like you’re having a good ol’ gossip over a glass of wine, maybe with some crisps and a fag too, if you’re that way inclined. More Than A Woman is a celebration of sisterhood, a call to arms for feminists (how about starting an international woman’s union?) and a crowning achievement for a woman at the height of her writerly powers.
I’m a similar vintage to Moran, so I can’t wait for her next instalment, which I imagine will deal with menopause. Actually, no… I can wait.
Reviewer: Stacey Anyan
Penguin, RRP$35