www.annemoore.net

 

 

 

 

 

Books: Rona Jaffe’s “The Best of Everything”

Do you like television’s “Mad Men?” I sure do.

Imagine my delight, then, to fall into Rona Jaffe’s first novel, “The Best of Everything” (1958). Set in the early Fifties, the story follows a handful of working girls at a Manhattan publishing house.

Leisurely told, Jaffe (1931-2005) has a light touch with heavy themes. I lapped it up.

Caroline Bender makes her way to her first day of work on a “cold, foggy midwinter morning in New York, the kind that makes you think of lung ailments.” That wry tone is the voice of this engaging read. Caroline is a recent college graduate whose heart was broken by her Harvard man, who sailed away for a European summer and returned married to a Texas oil heiress.

What’s a Radcliffe gal to do?

Live at home and work in the city. “The job was more than an economic inconvenience, it was an emotional necessity.”

Also at the publishing house: Mary Agnes, the office gossip, saving up for her wedding in two years. Barbara, divorced, mother of baby Hillary. April and Gregg, sometime actresses, who take temp work at the publishing house to pay rent.

With the exception of the deliciously lazy and mean editor Amanda Farrow, the office is run by “Mad Men” characters. Mr. Shalimar (really!) liquors up the young typists and impresses them with tales of his friendship with Eugene O’Neill. Shalimar manhandles all level of female employees, after hours, and crawls under the table at a company party, like a dog, to admire a girl’s legs. He’s a fool. He’s also the boss. More likable but no less damaged is Mike Rice, an editor, who falls for Caroline. A divorced father living in a hotel, Mike drinks so prodigiously I quit trying to measure.

Caroline is interested in Mike, but pines for Eddie Harris, her Harvard man. She strings along pallid but decent Paul and teases movie idol John Cassaro. Meanwhile, a married ad exec pursues Barbara. Mary Agnes finally marries. April falls for socialite Dexter Key, who seduces her, gets her pregnant, arranges the abortion, then casually dumps her. Afterwards, April goes on a boy bender that made me blush.

Gregg’s love affair with Broadway producer David Wilder Savage is a lovely and tragic sub story. He loves Gregg, but her neediness is so extreme he has to let her go. She stalks him, disastrously.

The end belongs to Caroline: it’s wild and wonderful, surprising but fitting.

Also in the blog

I like to write, and read, a life story. Childhood, education, influences, love affairs, disappointments, a troubled marriage, triumphs and recognition: Gail Levin’s biography of painter Lee Krasner is a masterfully told story of a great American life. Krasner (1908-1984) was born to Russian immigrants in then-rural Brooklyn. Her scholarly father sold fish from a

(...)

Can a book be grieved? It’s not a person, after all, or a beloved pet, or a plant you’ve cared for and coaxed into bloom each spring. It’s a book. I’ve said before that books are like lovers. Private companions. We take them to bed, tuck them into our bags, panic (as I did) when

(...)

To and from Montreal last weekend I carried Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, a 771 page hardback. No regrets. I had a wonderful time in Montreal, visiting my sweet son Evan, who’s a student at McGill University. I was smiling ear to ear at the prospect of spending a weekend with him in a world city,

(...)

One thought on "Books: Rona Jaffe’s “The Best of Everything”"