Description

From the bestselling author of Slaves of New York comes a hilarious, clear-eyed, satiric novel about the sad plight of a misguided woman on the make in Manhattan. Thirty-two-year-old Florence Collins is an aging filly-about-town –still beautiful enough to be (sometimes) invited to the best parties and the right restaurants, but unmarried and rapidly going broke. In her world, marriage to a wealthy man is all that can save her, although Florence s hard-hearted search for security and status takes her on an inevitable downward spiral.

New York society novels at the turn of the nineteenth century gave us a piercing look at the world and rituals of the city s wealthy; Janowitz here casts that tradition in a fresh light, giving us a tirn-of-the-century society novel that demonstrates how little seems to have changed. In a sly and unforgettable portrait of New York s haute monde, Janowitz brilliantly evokes a young woman s struggle for love and survival in the city that is as unforgiving today as it was a hundred years ago.