InPrettier if She Smiled More,the cast is the same,but the spotlight has shifted to Kylie,who’s now 43. The central event ofDinner With the Schnabels was a memorial service for the ex-husband and absent father David,long absconded and now newly dead;Gloria has been a single parent since Kylie was 12. Unsurprisingly,Kylie is the one who’d be “prettier if she smiled more”,and as this novel begins,she is about to have what the family dubs the Week of the Three Disasters.
The first of the disasters is that the pharmacy at which Kylie works,a business she has long since aspired to buy from her boss once he retires,is sold out from under her to a big pharmacy chain that may or may not deign to give her own job back once she has re-applied for it.
The second disaster is the enforced departure of her boyfriend,Colin,a sad tale the moral of which is that you should never synchronise your Fitbit with your partner’s. The third disaster occurs when the 70-ish Gloria,sporting “three-inch heels and a sequin swing coat”,falls off a barstool and breaks her ankle,whereupon Kylie sees no alternative but to move back into the family home to take care of her mother.
A fourth disaster seems to be looming,too:Kylie’s hitherto clockwork-regular period is three or four days late,but her attention is distracted by the looming crisis at work and the difficulties of looking after her mother:“’That tea is so pale it could be in the cast ofNeighbours,” said Gloria. “Please don’t tell me you put the milk in first.”
Fortunately,Gloria bonds with a Pomeranian called Caesar that Kylie has been manipulated into looking after while its owners are on holidays:“Gloria chose one bottle and shook it,then she extracted the brush,removing the excess polish against one edge,and painted the longest of Caesar’s nails a neon pink.”