Profile signs 'brilliant' Lucy Mangan title

Profile Books has acquired Diary of a Suburban Lady by Lucy Mangan, a "brilliant" fictional account of life in the suburbs.

Rebecca Gray, associate publisher at Profile, has acquired UK and Commonwealth Rights from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann and Louise Lamont at LBA.

Gray said she is "so delighted" that Mangan went with Profile to release the book and that the press was going to "have a ball" publishing it.

"From marital misadventures to children’s first haircuts to horrifying threadworm experiences, with plenty of friends and frenemies along the way, it’s a hilarious skewering of the combination of sweetness and nightmare that is modern family life. Hopefully she’ll have some thoughts on last minute World Book Day costume demands too," Gray said.

Mangan added: "I’m thrilled to be publishing this book with Profile and to have Rebecca by my side as I venture into fiction for the first time, with this modern take on The Diary of a Provincial Lady (E M Delafield’s dry-witted classic of family life and other vexations). I intend to neglect my own family entirely as I get to work on Diary of a Suburban Lady, which I hope will be a comic journey through the vicissitudes of modern domestic and professional life that will go well with a double gin and tonic at the end of the day."

Mangan is the author of four books including Hopscotch & Handbags: The Truth about Being a Girl (Headline) and My Family and other Disasters (Hachette).

Profile will publish Diary of a Suburban Lady in Autumn 2019.