Elements of Style

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of the essay collectionShiksa Goddess("Utterly delicious"Judith Thurman), a dazzling debut novel, a comedy about New York's urban gentry living in a post-9/11 worldthe 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 byManhattanmagazine, 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 copher 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. AsElements of Styleopens out, we see a madcap mosaic of the social lives and mores of twenty-first century Manhattanof romance, work, family, and friendship. Satiric, fierce, touchingand deliciously Wasserstein. "Pure Wendy! She effortlessly makes the leap from stage to page with a novel that is loving, compassionate, flat-out funny. Wendy loved the word 'scintillating,' which is the best way to describe her stunningElements of Style." John Guare "Wasserstein gets the trappings and tribulations (of friendship and of romance) right, making her depiction of the rich and fab trying to connect with one another witty and entertaining." Publishers Weekly "Bold, nimble, and funny to its fingertips,Elements of Styleis a delight, a triumph. A book that no self-respecting New Yorker should be without. Those cursed with the hell of multiple residences will self-evidently need several copiesand spares, for houseguests." Flora Fraser From the Hardcover edition.

Wendy Wasserstein is the author of the the plays Uncommon Women and Others, Isn’t It Romantic, The Sisters Rosensweig, An American Daughter, and The Heidi Chronicles, for which she received a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and of the books, Bachelor Girls and Shiksa Goddess. She was admired both for the warmth and the satirical cool of her writing; each of her plays and books captures an essence of the time, makes us laugh and leaves us wiser. Wendy Wasserstein was born in 1950 in Brooklyn and died at the age of 55. Her daughter, Lucy Jane, lives in New York.


From the Hardcover edition.