A Certain Age eBook Tama Janowitz
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"I consider every moment of my life spent unaware of the existence of novelist Tama Janowitz a complete and utter waste of consciousness...I would build a city of pearl and onyx for Tama Janowitz with my own raw and useless hands."
-- Mallory Ortberg, The Toast
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.
“If there’s anything Tama Janowitz knows about, it’s the sheer savagery of our most chic and ultra-sophisticated social arrangements.” – The New York Times Book Review
“Her best ever.” – Harper’s Bazaar
“Janowitz has penned a brutal update of Edith Wharton’s The house of Mirth, accurately analyzing the social codes and economic hierarchy that functions in the New York she knows, as Wharton did a century ago.” – Detour
“A scathing satire…Janowitz takes a shredder to New York City’s crème de la crème.” – Philadelphia City Paper
“A sharp-tongued and funny writer.” – Chicago Tribune
“Janowitz’s writing comes out of a tradition of comic American misantghropy that can be traced back to Twain, passing along the way through such intervening figures as Dreiser, Nathanael West, and the author of whom she is most reminiscent, Ring Lardner.” – New York Newsday
“Tama still has her knack for homing in on our worst fears and behavior, and initially, you feel like you can’t relate to Florence. Then you realize you only hope you can’t relate.” – Jane
“[Florence’s] steady decline down the social ladder she so desperately want to climb is the stuff of black humor.” – Manhattan File
A Certain Age eBook Tama Janowitz
I thought this book was funny. The rich husband she wanted was right under nose, but she was so fixated on finding him she never took the time to really talk to the man who really wanted her. At the end she finds out that he was not some poor underachieving do-gooder with a A-List education that was just in her way, he was actually rich and she shot herself in the foot. This chick for all of the education she had on obtaining and appraising all of the finer things in life and (not to mention her ability to size up a rich man based on what kind of suit he's wearing) she was still dumb as a box of rocks. She figured out how to get in game, but didn't have what it took to stay there. The rich are straight up grade A hustlers, she wasn't ready for prime time. Florence has "no game" and no street smarts. She thinks all she needs is her looks, the right clothes, a semi decent conversation and the right hook-up from passing female associates who are too busy running their own game to be concerned with her. She doesn't have the ability to con and beat the very people she despises yet uses all of her energy to become - at their own game. They're steady using her instead of the other way around, that's why she gets absolutely no where. She's so stupid and foolish she doesn't care about her job or the roof over her head and with no street smarts she can't even hustle her way into a solution. She should have been taking notes from Max. At the end though after she is evicted from her co-op and walking the streets, Tama throws the reader a little bone by having Florence find the last of the jewels (the most valuable by the way) stashed in her purse. Too much!Product details
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A Certain Age eBook Tama Janowitz Reviews
This novel is a modern-day "House of Mirth" and was clearly inspired by Edith Wharton's classic about Lily Bart, a woman who has been about too long in gilded-age New York society without making a suitable match. The main character of "A Certain Age", Florence Collins, is in her early 30s, holds a socially respected but low-paying job at a second-tier auction house and is trying to find a man who'll marry her and make her rich.
Janowitz's biting portrayal of Florence and her New York set in late 1990s Manhattan is keen and engaging. And while she references Wharton and Austen and has Florence saying Lily Bart's line, "What is to become of me?" Florence is no Lily, though is utterly believable. While Lily failed to make a match because she could not compel herself at the moment of truth to marry men she looked down on or found attractive only for their money, Florence passes every one up because she doesn't think they'll pass muster with the social mores of her circle to which she is constantly holding herself up for judgment -- or she is only attracted to people who dislike her. While Lily is taken advantage of by those she believes would help her, Florence stupidly careens through life avoiding responsibility by thinking she'll make a good marriage and letting people mess her up for their own gain. In short, Lily is attractive - a sympathetic heroine. Florence is unlikable in her selfishness, her willful blindness, her shallow values and her absolutely intractable irresponsibility.
But the novel is NOT unlikable. It's well written, well paced, funny and shrewdly sarcastic. The narrator has a limited vantage point -- Florence's view of the world -- so everything comes to the reader through that scrim. While we frustratingly blurted out routinely, "WHAT IS SHE DOING?!" we couldn't stop turning the pages to find out what would happen next.
Without spoiling the ending, I will say that it here diverges from the plot of "Mirth" (there are ways in which the novel mimics it, with similar characters and plot lines) and ends in a completely believable way. I respected very much that Janowitz had the insight and ability not to set Florence's life up so well and then draw everything together poorly out of a need for a Hollywood-type resolution.
This book could well stand on its own as a very enjoyable and fun (and frustrating) read, however, with "Mirth" as a backdrop, it stands out even more as a comment on how far (or not) certain women have come in the twentieth century. I recommend it highly.
Before there was "sex and the City", there was Florence. I loved her crazy choices, wild lifestyle - I was very concerned about her, but found humor and pain in this wonderfully eccentric novel. I thought it was just fantastic - entertaining - Tama Janowitz - please keep writing!!!!
This was a fun read until the abrupt ending. The book just ends without any conclusion.
From the other reviews posted, I can see that you don't *have* to live in NYC to enjoy this book. But as a New Yorker, I found this book to be over-the-top hilarious. However, I can see that some people might miss the humor, the way it was possible (for some) not to realize that the movie "Fargo" was a comedy. Florence Collins is a dead-on parody of a very specific personality that I encounter all over the place here. I highly recommend this book and have bought it for several friends. Just don't take it seriously! There is no serious message here.
When Mr Right was yours for the having the whole time.
I thought this book was funny. The rich husband she wanted was right under nose, but she was so fixated on finding him she never took the time to really talk to the man who really wanted her. At the end she finds out that he was not some poor underachieving do-gooder with a A-List education that was just in her way, he was actually rich and she shot herself in the foot. This chick for all of the education she had on obtaining and appraising all of the finer things in life and (not to mention her ability to size up a rich man based on what kind of suit he's wearing) she was still dumb as a box of rocks. She figured out how to get in game, but didn't have what it took to stay there. The rich are straight up grade A hustlers, she wasn't ready for prime time. Florence has "no game" and no street smarts. She thinks all she needs is her looks, the right clothes, a semi decent conversation and the right hook-up from passing female associates who are too busy running their own game to be concerned with her. She doesn't have the ability to con and beat the very people she despises yet uses all of her energy to become - at their own game. They're steady using her instead of the other way around, that's why she gets absolutely no where. She's so stupid and foolish she doesn't care about her job or the roof over her head and with no street smarts she can't even hustle her way into a solution. She should have been taking notes from Max. At the end though after she is evicted from her co-op and walking the streets, Tama throws the reader a little bone by having Florence find the last of the jewels (the most valuable by the way) stashed in her purse. Too much!
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