A Working Mother

Agnes Owens author Kirstin Innes editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Birlinn General

Publishing:7th May '26

£8.99

This title is due to be published on 7th May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

A Working Mother cover

A Working Mother is a perfectly crafted novel that will enthral, entertain and surprise in equal measure.

Our unreliable narrator, Betty – arch, witty, clever – is married with children and feels trapped. While her husband, Adam, drinks and bemoans his lot in life, Betty flirts with their best friend Brendan and tries to avoid the roving hands of her new employer. Soon, Betty plots her escape.

Agnes Owens' sharp wit, dark humour and lean prose are expertly displayed in one of her finest achievements.

'Agnes Owens was an absolutely brilliant novelist' – Kirstin Innes

'A terrific writer' – Liz Lochhead

'Her black humour and piercing observation bear comparison with the work of Muriel Spark' – Guardian

Published to celebrate Agnes Owens' centenary year in 2026.

'Agnes Owens' hallmarks have been a frank irony, a deadpan gothic quality and a down-to-earth insistence on the surreality of most people’s normality'

-- Ali Smith

'Owens pulls no punches. Her understated prose finds acerbic humour in the lives of characters hovering between farce and tragedy'

* Observer *

'Owens is a gift to the Scots urban world'

* The Sunday Times *

'Her black humour and piercing observation bear comparison with the work of Muriel Spark'

* Guardian *

'Owens has a voice no one could imitate, and humour to match . . . Scottish life as lived by those far from the comfort zone, depicted less with loathing than with love'

-- Rosemary Goring

'A hidden treasure of Scottish literature, read this and then read all her other works'

-- Douglas Stuart – Booker Prize-Winning author of SHUGGIE

ISBN: 9781846977015

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 12mm

Weight: 180g

176 pages

Centenary Edition