Parenting is lot more complicated in the 21st SENTRI. In the past, parents did not interview their children's playmates or start their college resumes in kindergarten or go it is also difficult a single mom or dad in trying to sort out your own romantic life. Problems like these and more make up the plot of the new and funny touching novel how to party with an infant. Joining me is the author Kaui Hart Hemmings. Many readers and moviegoers know your first novel the descendents about a very unconventional family. Do a meet another unconventional family situation in this novel? Mac yes, we do because she is a single mother and did not plan on being one. She got pregnant at age 27 in San Francisco with the love of her life and her boyfriend which he told the menus, he told her that he was already engaged. So it cannot work out the way she thought it would. Unconventional? Mac yes. How to party with an infant you wrote years ago explain how the form how to tell the story. The questionnaire form I was given -- we get questionnaires from the publishing company and when I was filling it out, I thought how funny would it be if I had no filter and I just filled it out and let myself rant and rave and just go wherever I wanted to. So that was the form for this. What she does in the novel those all and author questionnaire for a cookbook competition and in that process she does exactly what I thought would be so fun to do, which is to rant and rave and express ourselves in in the process work something out. Just like herself go. A lot of reviews for the book focuses on your observation of helicopter parents in San Francisco. Is that mommy culture intense? It was intent. -- Intense. I have the privilege of having to my kids and one was raised in San Francisco and one in Hawaii. I can compare and contrast and I have to say that San Francisco had so much opportunities for children in so many opportunities for mom to socialize. On the other side I think moms are way more intense about their children's up bringing and they just to get everything right and sometimes in that process it they get a little hectic and Strahinja. So in a way this is based the experiences that you had as a young mother in San Francisco have also become experiences to extend. Why a did you make her a single mother? Humic I like to make my narrators lives complicated. This did the trick. I think when you write novels, you're always looking for obstacles. That was an obstacle that I wanted to give her just to sort of amplify the fact that she's trying to find herself as a mom and as a woman. You were part of a mother's club in San Francisco. Your characters part of our mother's club in San Francisco what was that like Rick It was great. I force myself to do it or call I was a young mother and did not know anyone else with children. I wanted to have a social life and I wanted my daughter to have won as well. So I joined these clubs and they pair you into playgroups and it was sort of like dating. I would try one and it did not fit. I would move on to the next and I finally found a fit. She searches in searches and dumps certain playgroups and moves on to another. Another major theme in this book is cooking. A cookbook writing competition that's why she's filling out this questionnaire that we are winning in the book. Your relationship with cooking is kind of interesting. You did not come before you were a mother. Right. I did not. I got it done in our age and that was about it. Once I had my daughter cooking became a big thing for me. It was something to do and at the end of the day and something to create. I was not writing when she was born I just did not have the time or energy so that was something creative at the end of the day and something that I could produce. It was also something bonding that I had with other moms. We were always talking about what restaurants that we had been to and what did you cook last night. So it was definitely part of that mom world when I was living there. Did we hear about any actual recipes that she likes and how to party with an infant? We do. She gathers a few from her friends or creates recipes based on her friend's personality. So you do get a few in there. In waiting to reviews of how to party with an infant I have seen a lot of people say this. They said that you know how to be serious just so far and you know had to be raunchy just so far. I am wondering how do you manage that balance in your writing quick I think a lot of it comes through writing and reading out loud and just hearing it. When I read something I can sort of sense if I've gone too far or not but enough or if I'm being too queue or funny. Just comes with revision and sometimes you just can't help how things come out when it is your tone in your voice. Do you expect your second novel to be made into a movie as well? My second novel would be the possibilities. That has been at option so we will see. This one we shall see. It is brand-new. Give them a chance to Rita. -- Read it. She will be speaking about about how to party with an infant in doing that tonight in the whole area. It is a pressure -- pleasure. Thank you for talking with us. Thank you.
The 2007 essay collection "Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave" features a piece by "The Descendants" author Kaui Hart Hemmings. Written as a Q&A with an author, the kind publicists use for a book campaign, it describes a faux book titled "How To Party With An Infant," which Hemmings said was inspired by all the "stupid" stuff affluent mothers do and say.
That fictional book has become a reality. "How To Party With An Infant," Hemmings' latest novel, tackles a world of consultants and chefs hired by rich families in San Francisco to pamper their children.
Hemmings raised her first child in San Francisco 11 years ago before moving back home to Hawaii. The novel's main character, a single mother, joins a mommy's club and becomes immersed in a world with bathroom training boot camps and helicopter parenting.
"There was no research required," Hemmings said. "I was soaking it all in and then created a character who would interpret what I saw."
Hemmings raised her second child in Hawaii and said the experience has been completely different, though not necessarily better.
"(In Hawaii) I’ve never met anyone who hired a consultant of any sort for anything," she said. "But San Francisco was so much more kid-friendly. There’s so much geared and catered to children over there. There are so many programs and playgrounds were packed."
Hemmings joins KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday to discuss the world of "organic, free-range babies."
