'Slummy Mummy' crosses Atlantic to melt ice queen's heart

She is America's ice queen with the soubriquet Nuclear Wintour. Her frosty demeanour as editor-in-chief of US Vogue inspired The Devil Wears Prada, one of last year's Hollywood blockbusters.

Now Anna Wintour's glacial heart has melted. It took the fictional tale of a 30-something "slummy mummy", whose in-and-out shower routine is about as far removed from Wintour's legendary blow dries at it comes, to spark the thaw.

After falling for the slovenly antics of Fiona Neill's Slummy Mummy heroine, Lucy Sweeney, Wintour has trumpeted the UK best-seller as "a literary phenomenon to rival Bridget Jones" in this month's issue of US Vogue. The style bible carries the first excerpt of Neill's book to appear in America.

The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy, which has sold 40,000 UK copies since its February launch, is the latest example of the hottest genre to hit publishing since the aromatherapy candle-scented chick-lit days of the 1990s.

Mummy-lit is what happens when chick-lit grows up. Kids, chaos and cute, attached Dads come as standard. And Anna Wintour can't get enough of it. In her editor's letter, she gives Lucy Sweeney star billing. Slummy Mummy, she writes, to be published in the US on 5 July, "plays with the chaos and comedy of 30-something metropolitan maternity and brings it to an unexpectedly moving conclusion".

Neill's "hilarious new novel" follows in the illustrious footsteps of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It. Wintour points out, "both also made their American debuts in Vogue".

US readers, who will not have met Lucy Sweeney in Neill's Times column, are treated to an extract that reveals how the former Newsnight producer managed to send an email detailing her school-run fantasies to all the parents in her son's class. Luckily, Sexy Domesticated Dad (the subject of her extra-marital longings) takes it quite well when she bumps into him the next morning.

As in the UK, mum-lit, or mom-lit, is becoming a big deal in US publishing as the fiction of singledom makes way for the fiction of motherdom. Jill Kargman's Momzillas, which relates how motherhood in Manhattan's Upper East Side is a competitive sport, is just one of a number of tot-filled tomes.

Scott Pack, former head buyer at Waterstone's, explains, "The biggest part of the book-buying audience are females in their late 20s to early 40s ... most of those will be mums, and people often like to read about things they find familiar."

Industry insiders say sales of mum-lit titles are compensating for falling sales of chick-lit. But there is room for both, says Paul Henderson of The Bookseller: "Mum-lit sells to a different, slightly older audience."

EXTRACT

Lucy Sweeney, mother of three and washing machine slave, is on a rare girls' night out in a Soho club, in this extract from Fiona Neill's book...

Suddenly I am no longer a lonely married person on day release from the suburbs but part of an attractive group of nominally single 30-something women having a very good time, thank you very much. I imagine people looking at us and wondering how we fit together. Downing a third glass of champagne, and now more than perfectly happy with the quality of my own happiness, I start to review private clubs to which I belong.

"Of course there's no waiting list, and if you want to drink, you have to go into the loo with a hip flask, but in order of descending importance there is (1) Little Dippers swimming club, (2) Munchkin music group, and (3) Fire Engine play group."

"That one sounds good," says Cathy. "I could do with a bit of rough." Then Emma shrieks. "Something tried to ladder my tights." The four of us bend down to look under the table. "Forget the local wildlife," says Cathy. "It's Lucy's hairy legs."

I try to explain that having three children demands a minimalist beauty routine. "But what do you do all day?" asks Emma. "Isn't it all yoga and Cath Kidston floral prints?"

Further reading: "Front Row: Anna Wintour: The cool life and hot times of Vogue's editor-in-chief" by Jerry Oppenheimer