Suburgatory

Tessa, the teenage character created by ABCs Suburgatory, was forced by the man in her life—her dad—to leave her beloved city life for this supposed suburban utopia. Keenan followed the same trajectory, as a new mom, with no job, no friends, and not much more than a prescription for Zoloft to keep herself afloat. She found herself trapped in a place where conformity is king and where she often felt like she had been taken hostage by an adult Girl Scout troop. So Keenan decided to train her twisted reporters eye on the strange inhabitants of this new foreign land. 

Thought of as a local town newspaper or website, Suburgatory excoriates—through satirical local “news stories” (Mom Plans School Auction During Dreary Sex; Woman Shops at Walmart to Feel “Pretty,Thin”; Dog Fed Better than Scholarship Child, Says School Nurse)—the mostly upper middle class American pieties and parenting obsessions that surround raising the perfect child amid the anxiety of an America in decline. The book uses laugh-out-loud humor to target racism, homophobia, submerged suburban sexuality, class warfare, willful ignorance, and the all-around bad behavior raging underneath the surface of those obsessively tended suburban lawns and bikini lines. Suburgatory parodies the tiger moms, breastfeeding nazis, frustrated swingers, foreskin-loving “intactivists,” barely there dads, “anti-vaxxers,” and power-mad principals.

In addition to the irreverent news stories, Suburgatory features faux op-ed “Shout Outs” (Lets Do that Key Party Right the Next Time), witty advertisements (Briarcliff Academy—Educating the Stupid Rich Since 1903), and an over-the-top totally toxic advice columnist: Dr. Drama (“When life hands you a problem, lets make it more interesting!”).

“Linda Keenan is the smartest, sassiest girl you know times ten, after two shots of tequila.  Her brazen, ballsy look at  life in the suburbs is more than laugh out loud—Subugatory will make you shoot milk out of your nose, then immediately re-up the lease on your townhouse in the city.” —Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How Georgia Became OKeeffe

“What life might be like if Sarah Silverman moved to the burbs. A sexy, saucy, hilarious romp.” —Bill Diehl, ABC Entertainment Correspondent

“‘Hilarious. ‘Insightful. ‘Genius. People are always saying these words to me. Now, finally, I can say them about someone else: specifically whoever wrote this book. Linda somebody." —Robert Carlock, Executive Producer of NBC's 30 Rock

“Linda Keenan is the only person I know who can write about hard-core public policy and salacious suburbanites with the same wit and insight.” —Janine Wedel, author of Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market

“Wow this book's hilarious but it's so edgy, blurbing it might get me in trouble.” —Anonymous Top Network News Producer

The title behind the new ABC TV Show, Suburgatory excoriates—through satirical local news “stories”—the mostly upper middle class American pieties and parenting obsessions that surround raising the perfect child amid the anxiety of an America in decline. The book uses laugh out loud humor to target racism, classism, sexism, submerged suburban sexuality, class warfare, willful ignorance, and the all-around bad behavior raging underneath the surface of those obsessively-tended suburban lawns and bikini lines.

Suburgatory lampoons the absurdities and contradictions that Linda Keenan has witnessed since leaving New York City, where she was a thoroughly urban CNN news producer for seven years, and settling down as a hapless stay-at-home suburban mother. The original proposal for this book was picked by Warner Brothers in 2010, and you can see their imagining of Suburgatory on the ABC show of the same title this fall.

Keenan was forced by the man in her life to leave her beloved New York City for a supposed suburban utopia. Instead she found herself trapped in a place where conformity is king, and where she often felt like she had been taken hostage by an adult Girl Scout troop. So Keenan decided to train her twisted reporter's eye on the strange inhabitants of this new foreign land. Thought of as a local town newspaper or website, Suburgatory includes “news stories” (Mom Plans School Auction During Dreary Sex) that go after the tiger moms, breastfeeding nazis, frustrated swingers, crypto-racists, barely-there dads, and power-mad principals..

In addition to the irreverent news stories, Suburgatory features faux op-ed "Shout Outs" (Lets Do that Key Party Right the Next Time), witty advertisements (Briarcliff Academy—Educating the Stupid Rich Since 1903), and an over-the-top totally toxic advice columnist: Dr. Drama. .

Linda Erin Keenan spent seven years as a CNN head-writer for anchors, including Anderson Cooper and Lou Dobbs, before trading it all in for baby and suburbia. She now trains her reporters eye on the subversive side of her new, foreign environment. Her essays have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine and The Huffington Post.