From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of the essay collection Shiksa Goddess, comes 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 #1 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 12 Oscars, and his wife, the Italian supermarket heiress and former media rep for Giorgio Armani; and many more.
As Elements of Style opens, we see a madcap mosaic of the social lives and mores of 21st century Manhattan, of romance, work, family, and friendship. Satiric, fierce, touching, and deliciously Wasserstein.
