Natural Disaster - A Novel

By: Lisa Owens

Published by Little Brown, 2026-07-07

One perfect day. A million catastrophes.



For weeks she has been saying it will be their special day. One last, perfect day with her children before she returns to work after maternity leave. What's the worst that can happen?



Unfolding across 24 hours, Natural Disaster is a propulsive, funny and sharply observed novel about the absurd, frustrating, hilarious, precarious, bittersweet, sometimes astonishing challenge--literal, existential--of being a woman, a mother, a wife, a person for one single, entire day.



A high-octane Mrs. Dalloway for our hectic times, Natural Disaster is "a thunderously good novel--the kind that makes you rock with laughter, shed a genuine tear, and immediately think of which friends you're going to lend it to first." (Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall)