Bought from Aurora Hills Branch Library's book sale shelf.

From Amazon:
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of the essay collection Shiksa Goddess, a dazzling debut novel, a comedy about New York’s urban gentry living in a post-9/11 world—the arbiters of fashion and the doyennes of charity balls; about the rich and the nouveau rich(er), the glamorous and the desperate to be.

We meet Francesca Weissman, the Upper East Side pediatrician rated number one by Manhattan magazine, who takes us into the upper strata of privilege and aspiration (she’s originally from Queens with a father in hosiery; life on the fringes of glittering New York is fine with her) . . . Samantha Acton, thoroughbred descendant of the Van Rensselaers and the Carnegies, who defines the social order in the great tradition of Mrs. Astor and Babe Paley . . . Judy Tremont from Modesto, California, daughter of a cop—her life’s work, her obsession, is New York society and its richest families . . . Barry Santorini, Republican, moviemaker, winner of twelve Oscars, and his wife, the Italian supermarket heiress and former media rep for Giorgio Armani . . . and many more.

As Elements of Style opens out, we see a madcap mosaic of the social lives and mores of twenty-first century Manhattan—of romance, work, family, and friendship. Satiric, fierce, touching—and deliciously Wasserstein.

Reserved for bookstogive’s General Literature VBB

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Adding to the restarted ABC Bookbox.

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I'm claiming this from the Already Been Crossed bookbox!

Later: OK, this did NOT strike me as a comedy, as most of its blurbs suggest; they make it sound rather "Sex and the City"-ish, and while both works do deal with characters hyper-focused on a lifestyle that to me seems superficial and selfish in the extreme, "Sex" had a wry humor and snarky tone that I found amusing.

In this novel, we meet a variety of characters, most of them among the wealthy and/or celebrated of New York, as they meander through relationships, hopes, and fears. Set in immediate post-9/11 times, there are many references to the aftermath of that horrific event, from central character Frankie (a talented pediatrician and perhaps the only really useful person in the cast, as far as I could tell) musing on patients whose parents may be missing among the ruins to other characters panicking at any news of new violence, however unlikely it is to involve another terrorist attack. But it doesn't add tension to the story; indeed, most of the tone seems so very flat and distant that I never got much sense of drama at all. I wonder if the tone was deliberate; in the aftermath of a disaster, everyone goes around in shock, with normal emotions seeming muted next to the trauma? Hmmm...

Whatever the reasons, I can't say I enjoyed the book; the characters were mostly unlikable, shallow and vain and casually cruel, with even the few exceptions being on the melancholy side. And I hate it when an otherwise sensible and smart character makes what appears to be an obviously awful romantic choice and is then surprised that it doesn't work out {wry grin}.

There is a rather surprising plot point near the end, in which one of the most self-absorbed of the cast (and that's saying something) is enjoying a skiing holiday - and winds up causing a fatal accident involving another of the main characters, one that she simply skis away from and gives little thought to thereafter... OK, there are hints that this may haunt her a bit, but the novel doesn't continue much beyond that point, and while the event triggers the last-minute romantic rearrangement that leaves Frankie the odd person out, there still wasn't much in the way of powerful emotion.

I first encountered Wasserstein's work via her play The Heidi Chronicles, which I preferred to this novel; I could see some similarities in style, and perhaps if the characters in the novel were given some oomph by stage actors I might appreciate them more... Wasserstein also wrote the screenplay for the movie Object of My Affection, which I liked very much.

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this beautiful day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2019 Allergic to A release challenge. ***