Central Park boating pond in spring
Having grown up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I took special pleasure in
Caitlin Macy’s
Spoiled set there. None of my close friends resemble her self-centered heroines, but I recognize the type. Macy’s observation are as sharp as broken glass and reflect an affluent world of the not quite privileged enough. Her women live in million dollar apartments overlooking the shaftway instead of Central Park. They married money.
Caitlin Macy reminds me of John Cheever, Curtis Sittenfeld and Tom Wolfe. These authors regard their privileged but miserable characters with unflinching honesty. There is a keen eye for subtle class differences bordering on satire. The reader gets to know the selfish protagonist, but the protagonist is incapable of full self-realization. Moral ambiguity chimes on champagne glasses.
Here’s an excerpt from “Christie,” the opening story in
Spoiled:
I realized that what separated us, and perhaps had always separated us, was the understanding that I had only just reached and that she – she would never have to: In life you can only get so far.A shorter version of “Christie,” was published in
The New Yorker four years ago and was my introduction to this talented author. One woman mocks another without realizing how superficial she is herself. Her condescension comes back to haunt her. “The Red Coat” takes this one step further: a housewife tries to cut down her self-confident housecleaner by stealing her coat. The insecure employer actually believes she is granting a favor.
The best stories twist upon themselves with double meaning. The title piece “Spoiled” refers to a young horse, but it is really the teenaged owner who is spoiled and at fault for ruining her mount. The pushy mothers in Macy’s stories come from middle class backgrounds and want their daughters to have everything that they believed they were denied themselves.
In “Annabel’s Mother” we are given the key to the private garden, but amid the lush blooms are socialite thorns. The mothers gossip about the other residents and their nannies. Social standing is precarious. It’s not enough to rent a summer house on
Nantucket Island; you must own one. Members of the Lower Upper Class are defined as much by what they don’t have as by what they do have.
Brant Point Lighthouse, Nantucket Island In “The Secret Vote” a New Yorker learns that her fetus has Down Syndrome. She spends her weekends with her pro-life cousin and a houseful of children. The protagonist believes her choice is obvious, like voting democrat in the upcoming election, but somehow the decision is much harder than she anticipated. Macy lays out the moral quandary without passing judgment: for this I love her.
The stories are not equally successful. The ones about New Yorkers abroad resort to stereotypes. Although they had their moments, “Bait and Switch”in Italy and “Taroudant”in Morocco were poorly crafted compared to the stories set in America. The author is much better when writing about what she knows.
Caitlin Macy lives on the Upper East Side (in a prewar off 5th Ave.) and is from the family that originally started Macy’s Department Store, although she didn’t inherit that money. She went to boarding school and to Yale on scholarship. This I learned in the Style Section of
The New York Times where her book was
first reviewed on its March 1st release.
I’d recommend getting
Spoiled for Mother’s Day. You’ll read it and realize you’re not such a bad mom after all. I gave the collection to my mother with a warning: these are compelling stories about creepy women. I still thoroughly enjoyed most of them. As a writer of women’s fiction, I learned from them too.
Spoiled cleverly straddles the literary/commercial fiction divide, and it does so with class.
Click icon for more
book review blogs
@Barrie Summy
I haven't been online much lately, but don't blame lilac season . . .
. . . or the beautiful wildflowers in our woods.
Our fridge died at the start of a heat wave. The new fridge won’t be delivered for 2 weeks. Yes, Maine is really that remote and does occasionally hit 90. We have been living out of two coolers, reloading them with ice daily.
In our short spring in May you can’t leave out any food. Our house gets over run by carpenter ants, foraging from the woods. The woods also produce the lovely wildflowers you see in this post so it’s not all bad. Or so I thought.
Then my itchy dog was diagnosed with scabies, which I’d thought was a medieval affliction. Wild animals pass it to dogs. It can pass to humans too. I had to vacuum and spray every room Stella inhabited and wash all the bedding (hers and ours) in hot, soapy water. I wore a medical mask, rubber gloves and Wellington boots. At least the insecticide finished off the ants too.
I’m still trying to use the few remaining school days to keep writing. My household misadventures might be amusing if they were happening to someone else. So I’m sharing.
It’s better to laugh than to cry. I watched a video clip of one of my husband’s former students who visited us recently. Hari Kondabolu (above) lives in New York City but does not work on Wall Street. He’s a comedian, with a masters in human rights from the LSE. No kidding. The degree works well for him when accused of being politically incorrect or insensitive. If you need a laugh too, watch him here on Jimmy Kimmel:
