Title: A House in the Hamptons
First published: January 10, 1991
Description: It may not be as famous yet as Beverly Hills or Palm Beach, but Long Island's 'The Hamptons' is fast becoming THE place for over-achieving New Yorkers to spend their weekends showing off exactly what they've over-achieved to other, like-minded yuppies.
Long the bastion of the quietly moneyed, over the past few years this once quaint beach community has become a four-way tug-of-war over power and prestige between the 'Always Had Its', the 'Just Got Its', the 'Maybe Next Year I'll Get Its' and the 'Never Gonna Have Its'.
And just as New York has its Tom Wolfe and Palm Beach has its Pat Booth, so now this upwardly mobile resort has its very own fictional chronicler — Gloria Nagy.
The author of four previous novels, Nagy has already garnered praise as a writer with a wonderful knack for mixing social satire with emotional depth, creating intriguing characters and memorable stories. And in her new novel, A House in the Hamptons, she has created a satirical tour deforce that holds up America's 'thirtysomething' generation to the light and points out every wrinkle, nip and tuck.
The centre of the book revolves around Harry Hart and Donnie Jamieson, whose lifelong friendship is threatened by the unexpected re-emergence in the midst of an idyllic summer of former high-school pin-up and Monroe look-alike Madeline Ferris. As the two come to grips with the passions and temptations she embodies, their wives struggle with their own fears about Fritzi and the damage she may wreak. And when the Harts and the Jamiesons meet two upwardly-mobile yuppy couples, the ensuing emotional fireworks threaten to ruin not the summer holidays but the couples' marriages and happiness altogether.
Part of the power of Nagy's book lies in her ability to get inside the mind and attitudes of everyone from a lowbrow masseuse to the status-conscious millionaires for whom Ferraris, Ralph Lauren, psychotherapy and sun-dried tomatoes are the stuff of life. Nagy treats them all with equal satirical intent and equal sympathy, making us feel warmth for even the most obnoxious personalities. In Nagy's hands everyone sheds their masks, becomes surprisingly likable and all too human.
As you might expect, A House in the Hamptons has already been enormously successful in the United States. Dubbed 'Seashore of the Vanities' by admiring New York critics, it has catapulted the Hamptons and Nagy into prominence throughout the country.
Now the book is set to take Britain by storm. A rich stew of sociological insight, biting satire and spot-on humour.
Subjects: Fiction, general