First, a fun announcement (“deal report”): I’ve sold my fifth book, and first novel, to Harper Via, pub date to come. A précis: The Beidermeier is a not-quite-glamorous women’s hotel in an unremarkable neighborhood (Turtle Bay, after the UN Headquarters and associated subsidiaries cleared out the last of the Bohemian holdouts) during the declining half of the 20th century. What the YWCA and the Village’s Women’s House of Detention are to down-and-outers, and the Barbizon is to Midwestern ingenues with anxious, moneyed parents, the Beidermeier is to under-the-radar office girls. Most of them have jobs rather than careers, cadge free lunch under false pretenses but try not to shoplift, are cheerfully aware of the obsolescence of their surroundings, and are slightly skeptical of any attempt to improve their circumstances, whether that be the sexual revolution, gay liberation, the marriage plot, public reinvestment in urban development, the suburbs, or the telephone-operators’ union. Arresting the slide and staying in place is their shared ambition.
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read it.
EXCELLENT news about the books, and I’m especially looking forward to the novel--fascinated by that time and place, Danny! Congratulations--