The Mothers of Country Day: A Beach Read to Get You Talking

The Mothers of Country Day, the new book by author Arlene Matthews, is for every mom who has every parked her dented minivan next to a shiny luxury car at a school parking lot. But it's also for every well to do parent always being hit up for a donor check by her child's headmaster.

The comic novel is set firmly in the Two River area with thinly veiled references to its boroughs. The towns of Little Fawn and Lower Fawn exist on a "mythical peninsula," Matthews says. "If that reminds you of anything, I'm not responsible," she says with a smile.

Local history buffs will be tipped off by the of Lower Fawn, the lesser cousin to Little Fawn with it's. There is even reference to a certain gourmet market which evolved from a farmside tomato stand into a desitination for foodies. Not too mention a scruffy . Even places like Monmouth Park get a nod.

The roots of the novel's characters are harder to trace. "There's no person who's a person," Matthews said. "It's a toenail from someone and an eyelash from someone else, with a dose of sense of humor."

And while you may be tempted to compare the school in the book to a certain country day school around the corner, Matthews is quick to wave her hand.

"There are hundreds of day schools around the state," she said. "This could be any one of them." Certainly in Monmouth County, it's hard not to throw a stone and hit an "academy" of some kind.

More than as a parent of a son (now at Johns Hopkins), for the book Matthews drew on her collective experience as a 20 year resident of Fair Haven and as a tutor and a college admissions consultant. She saw first hand the crazy goings on of private school parents looking to get their kids ahead.

A fish out of water story, the novel follows Josie Messina an Italian working class deli owner with a math whiz kid, who is offered a full scholarship to a local country day school. In the time it takes Messina to drop her son off to his first day of school, this single mom with a closet devoid of Lilly Pulitzer, is swept up into mommy clique drama that could easily be labeled Real Housewives of the Two Rivers.

The book is also about false appearances. Some people who appear to be rich (or happy or successful) are not. Other's who feel hopelessly out of place are right on track.

Ultimately though, Matthews said, it's a story of redemption. "It's a comedy to get people talking about serious issues," like school administrators looking to articificially inflate their school test scores.

Matthews who already has some 30 books under her belt from brick and mortar publishers, usually ghost writes for athletes and CEOs. She also writes pop psychology and is the author of Getting in Without Freaking Out: The official college admissions guide for overwhelmed parents.

For her first novel Matthews chose to go with Create Space, Amazon.com's publishing arm, because of the publishing speed and creative freedom it offered.

The stigma self-publishing, aka vanity press, once carried has given way to an author's chance at creative control and higher royalties, Matthews said.

"I've never had that freedom before. And after 30 books and being only lukewarm about the jacket covers and interior design, it's really beautiful," she said about the process. "It's changing the face of publishing. It's a way to foster creativity like with indie music... people are starting to look at indie books."

To boot, Matthews is now a quarter finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which will be awarded in May.

Matthews said writing this novel, the notes of which had been sitting in her drawer for five years, is a hobby. Seeing her characters come to life and then, as she says, "start doing things on their own" the whole second half of the book, has got her thinking about the sequel.

Will it be another mama drama?

Matthews is thinking murder mystery. "I know the perfect place to dispose of the body."

"The victim," she says with a smile, "is yet to be determined. So my neighbors better be on their best behavior." 

Signed copies of The Mothers of Country Day are available in paperback at . It is also available at Amazon and on Kindle.