VICTORIA MATHER AND SUE MACARTNEY-SNAPE - The Embarrassing Parents. Social Sterotypes From the Telegraph Magazinr

London England, John Murray, 2002. Reprint, Binding: Boards, Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0719562317 Hardback 'Why can't you just grow up?' chorus the kids on the way home from yet another party at which Dick and Patsy have made an exhibition of themselves, gyrating wildly to La Bamba and clearing the dance floor with their contortions during Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survice. Isn't family life cringey? Emotionally exhausting, too, when the eldest daughter is lying upstairs in a sea of damp Kleenex, weeping into her mobile after being dumped by her boyfriend Giles, and son Jamie is upsetting all the family's old Australian friends with his louche behaviour on his gap year in Sydney. In the book their fans have all been waiting for, the authors introduce a new cast of deliciously recognizable characters, from Serene the Flirt and her current Roderick ('Running the Deutsche Gremlin Bank must be so exciting') to Abigail the Terrible Flatmate, with her cabbage soup diet and greying bras draped across the bath. All hilarious and toe-curlingly sharp. Illustrations.