A Working Mother is a wildly entertaining cautionary tale: while Betty’s husband, Adam, broods and drinks (to be matched at times by Betty, just to be sociable) she flirts with their best friend Brendan and tries to avoid the roving hands of her new employer. They’re all driving Betty crazy.

A sharp, darkly humorous novella that explores the life of a working-class woman caught in a destructive relationship and an unforgiving society. Agnes Owen’s sharp wit, humour and lean prose is beautifully displayed in this tragi-comedy. 

Published to celebrate Agnes Owens' centenary year in 2026.

'Agnes Owens' hallmarks have been a frank irony, a deadpan gothic quality and a down-to-earth insistence on the surreality of most people’s normality'

'Owens pulls no punches. Her understated prose finds acerbic humour in the lives of characters hovering between farce and tragedy'

'Owens is a gift to the Scots urban world'

'Her black humour and piercing observation bear comparison with the work of Muriel Spark'

'Owens has a voice no one could imitate, and humour to match . . . Scottish life as lived by those far from the comfort zone, depicted less with loathing than with love'

'A hidden treasure of Scottish literature, read this and then read all her other works'

Agnes Owens was always a writer, although for the majority of her life she was preoccupied with making a living and domesticity. She married twice, brought up seven children and variously worked as a typist, cleaner and factory worker. It wasn’t until she attended an evening creative writing course that she wrote her first novel Gentlemen of the West, published in 1984 by Polygon to widespread critical acclaim; she would go on to write a further five novellas, including A Working Mother and For the Love of Willie, and three short-story collections. She died in 2014.

Kirstin Innes is an award-winning writer, journalist and arts worker living in the west of Scotland. Her first novel Fishnet won The Guardian's Not The Booker Prize in 2015, and is currently in development for television with STV. Her second novel Scabby Queen was published by 4th Estate in 2020, and she is currently developing a play with the National Theatre of Scotland.