The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood review – an acerbic must-read | The Guardian

An unexpected journey from celebrity interviewer to single mother is never less than candid and funnyJournalist Sophie Heawood has written columns about life as a single mother and her memoir, The Hungover Games, provides the backstory. It’s a funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid account of accidental pregnancy, single motherhood and how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, wittier and more resourceful. You can’t go under when there’s a little human at stake.At 34, Heawood was working as a celebrity interviewer in Hollywood, living at the seedier end of Sunset Strip (she vividly describes it as full of “ironed smiles and painted rage”). Believing her PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) rendered her near infertile, she had unprotected sex during a hook-up with a musician semi-boyfriend, whose identity she conceals. The resulting pregnancy sucked her out of her bohemian, stardust-sprinkled existence and back to east London and reality, eventually settling in “Piss Alley”, where late-night revellers urinated against the houses. Continue reading…

An unexpected journey from celebrity interviewer to single mother is never less than candid and funny

Journalist Sophie Heawood has written columns about life as a single mother and her memoir, The Hungover Games, provides the backstory. It’s a funny, acerbic, sometimes despairing and brutally candid account of accidental pregnancy, single motherhood and how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, wittier and more resourceful. You can’t go under when there’s a little human at stake.

At 34, Heawood was working as a celebrity interviewer in Hollywood, living at the seedier end of Sunset Strip (she vividly describes it as full of “ironed smiles and painted rage”). Believing her PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) rendered her near infertile, she had unprotected sex during a hook-up with a musician semi-boyfriend, whose identity she conceals. The resulting pregnancy sucked her out of her bohemian, stardust-sprinkled existence and back to east London and reality, eventually settling in “Piss Alley”, where late-night revellers urinated against the houses.

Continue reading…