Allison Pearson's teenage infatuation with 70s heart-throb David Cassidy proved to be great fodder for her second novel.
Working mothers went wild for Allison Pearson's first novel, I Don't Know How She Does It, back in 2002. It seemed she was the first person to write honestly and amusingly about what their lives were really like: the juggling, the guilt, even the "distressing" of shop-bought mince pies to make them look homemade.
"I remember being on book tour and seeing women crying as I did readings," says Pearson from her home in Cambridge, England. "We were the generation who were told we could do anything thanks to feminism, but we ended up with our dad's jobs and our mother's responsibilities.
"Still, I think one of the things fiction can do is tell people they're not alone. I hope that book helped inspire women to change their lives and get the balance right."
Her debut novel, a bestseller, was a struggle to write, leaving Pearson - a journalist and mother of two - exhausted. She had no intention of embarking on a second until she stumbled over another idea she believed every woman would relate to.
The result, I Think I Love You (Chatto & Windus, $38.99), was released several years later and after battles with litigious lawyers and serious depression. "It took a long time," Pearson agrees. "I seemed to write a paragraph every six months."
The story takes an upbeat look at that first teen crush on a pop idol. Pearson writes of the poster-kissing, fanzine-reading infatuation with all the passion of someone who went through a serious bout of it herself.
"For 18 months I wore nothing but brown because I read in a magazine it was David Cassidy's favourite colour," she tells me. "I had a very sallow complexion ... I looked terrible."
The heroine of I Think I Love You, Petra, is a Welsh teenager who is head-over-heels in love with The Partridge Family star. She and her friends pore over the minutiae of his life in their bible The Essential David Cassidy Magazine, unaware that almost every word is made up by cynical young journalist Bill. When Petra attends the ill-fated concert in White City where a fan was fatally injured in the crush, her life brushes against Bill's. But it's not until years later that they meet up properly - and again it's Cassidy who brings them together.
"You don't have to be a David Cassidy fan to read the book," says Pearson. "What's interesting is that period in a girl's life. It's intensely romantic - the point between liking a guinea pig and liking a real boy. The same thing is happening now to my own daughter Evie. She has a shrine to Robert Pattinson from Twilight and knows everything about him. She even insists on eating the breakfast cereal she's read is his favourite."
Pearson is already getting feedback from Cassidy fans who have read and loved I Think I Love You. "Some of them were far crazier than me which is reassuring," she says.
"One woman in America said she put on a clean night dress and did her hair for when The Partridge Family came on in case David could see her from the TV screen."
Although the book is fun to read, Pearson didn't have such a great time writing it. There were family and health problems, her mother was unwell and she suffered a serious bout of depression. "I still don't feel I'm fixed," she admits. "I feel like a mended watch that might break again. Right now I'm taking each day as it comes and not taking myself for granted."
Along the way there was also a legal stoush with movie studio Miramax, which owned film rights to I Think I Love You and decided to sue for non-delivery when there was no sign of a manuscript.
"It was stressful, but we got through it," Pearson says. "And the great thing now is I Think I Love You belongs to me and there's interest in turning it into a musical which I'd love, so something good has come out of all the turmoil. Also, Sarah Jessica Parker has been signed to star in the movie of my first book."
Now almost 50, Pearson is taking a break from work. There are no plans to write another novel, although she will return to journalism later in the year.
"For me the book comes from the same place as my love for my children in a way and it's taken a lot out of me," she explains.
"It contains the contents of my battered heart. I gave it every single thing I had and worked and worked to get the scenes and dialogue right."
Pearson ends I Think I Love You with a transcription of an interview she did with David Cassidy in 2004 for the The Daily Telegraph Magazine. So what was it like to meet her idol all those years on?
"I was really nervous," she admits. "I didn't want to pity this fantastic boy who dominated my childhood. But I liked him. He was very open and honest with me as you can see from the interview. And he screamed at me because I'd screamed at him ..."
