It’s every debut author’s dream. You write your first novel, publishers enter a bidding war to secure it for the highest price and before you know it, a TV series has been optioned.
But that’s exactly what happened to first-time novelist Sarah Harman, whose satirical thriller All The Other Mothers Hate Me has been making waves through the publishing industry. Translation rights have been sold to 15 countries.
It’s a lightly caustic, satirical tale centring on former girl band member and now single mother Florence Grimes, an American living in London who incurs the bitchiness, backstabbing and biting snobbery of other mothers at the school gate of the posh, private west London school that her son Dylan attends.
When one of the pupils goes missing – a bully who happened to be Dylan’s partner on the school trip on the day he disappeared – and the finger is pointed at her bullied son, Florence discovers worrying signs that maybe Dylan had something to do with it.
In an effort to clear his name, she forms an unlikely investigating partnership with highly strung American lawyer mum Jenny Choi to get to the bottom of the mystery.
It’s not so much the thriller aspect that makes this book so enjoyable. It’s the interactions between the mothers at the school gate and beyond, the toxic WhatsApp groups, the nuanced comments and pushy attitudes which must be familiar to many parents who don’t quite fit in with the status quo of the privileged few.
Harman, 38, a former broadcast journalist and TV news anchor, is herself an American in London with two children, who moved to London in 2018 as a foreign correspondent for NBC, but gave it all up in 2021 when she became burned out by the high-pressure news environment she worked in.
She had studied English at university and dreamed of writing a book, she recalls.
“In 2022 I found myself unemployed and I thought, now is the time. And it was inspired by my own experiences of being an American in west London. The rest was imagination. I’ve never been a pop star or had a child involved in a missing persons case.”
The school gate elements are written slightly from experience, although her children are much younger than those in the book and weren’t at school when she was writing it, she recalls.
“I went on a lot of school tours. I have toured most of the selective day schools in west London and a few of the boarding schools. As an American we’re obsessed with British boarding schools because of Harry Potter.
“But the day schools are actually where the drama is, because that’s where the parents are.”
She heard stories which gave her material, including a WhatsApp group which was launching a petition against fluorescent lighting in the kindergarten, which they claimed was damaging their children.
“When I toured these schools, it seemed like each one of them is a tiny universe and they each have their own rules. I remember going to one, and this boy was telling me about the house ties. Just understanding what I’m seeing on the outside is like the tip of the iceberg.”
The school gate experience is very different in the US, she says, because children are just dropped off in cars by their parents or nannies in a drive-through fashion.
“The WhatsApp groups, however, do seem to be international.”
Harman grew up mostly in Florida and had a big broadcasting career in the US, reporting on major news stories around the world for more than a decade, most recently as a foreign correspondent for NBC News.
“I just burnt out completely. I was done,” she says candidly. “I was in the UK for my last job and I just stayed.”
The transition from high-profile broadcasting journalist to debut novelist was a big adjustment, she agrees.
“I missed the people I worked with and the feeling of being in the field with a team. You don’t feel that when you’re sitting at a desk. But writing a book was a real bucket list item for me.”
She used her journalism experience of tight deadlines to help her discipline when writing the book, she remembers.
“I’d worked really hard for someone else, for the broadcaster, so to take that and say, I’m going to work that hard for myself, was a really good experience.”
She won’t talk about her husband, who is also from the US, or her two children, but juggling family with writing a book clearly requires discipline.
“I stopped drinking alcohol and coffee, went to bed at eight and would wake up really early, at four, and write until breakfast time. My husband calls it ‘Hobbit’ mode. It made me so boring.”
Harman confesses that it took her about two years to write, edit and submit the manuscript, which then went to a nine-way auction and she remains totally overawed by the attention it received.
“I cannot emphasise to you enough how ignorant I was about the entire world of publishing or how anything worked before I started this. In my case, my agent sent it out and the next day she told me that we were going to have a really competitive situation.
“I was like, what does that mean? She said, ‘Multiple people are interested’. So yes, it’s just a dream scenario.
“I felt really lucky because when you’re a debut author you’re writing something that nobody is asking for and you basically have to take it and force it on the world and beg people to read it. It was just amazing to feel that several people want this.
“I felt elated. It was a dream come true. In my fantasy a good outcome was that someone wants to buy the book, but the fact that multiple people were interested, oh my God!”
The TV rights were also snapped up by Disney’s FX following a bidding war and Harman is writing the pilot for the TV series, which is in the early stages of development.
“I really wanted to be involved. You know, everyone tells you not to get involved in your own adaptation. The road is paved in author tears. It’s not done yet and I think it could still end in tears for me, but I thought that it’s such a cool opportunity, I’ll kick myself if I don’t try.”
While she is doubtful she’ll be involved in the casting, she says: “As a debut writer, wouldn’t it be nice if it was an unknown actress getting her big break, just like I got a chance? This book opened up so many doors for me. I’d love to see that for someone else.”
All The Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman is published by 4th Estate. Available now
