"Mrs.," by Caitlin Macy

Why am I so often enthralled by fiction about wealthy families in Manhattan? Their habits, their haunts, their relationships, their belongings, the schools their children attend, the restaurants they patronize, and more…all catnip for me. As I have written before here, I feel some embarrassment about this, but on the other hand I justify it – perhaps rather feebly, but with a kernel of truth – by noting its relationship to my research and writing on social class, and especially on affluent students and families from around the world. I will also point out here that some writers focus on this topic – the wealthy in Manhattan (and surroundings and related locales) -- with much more seriousness than others (which is not to say that even the serious ones don’t include some snarky humor in their portrayals of this one percenter class). The tone of a very recent novel by Caitlin Macy, “Mrs.” (Little, Brown, 2018), is serious, funny, sometimes grim, even “savage” as one reviewer noted. Macy, the author of an earlier novel, “The Fundamentals of Play,” and of a short story collection, “Spoiled” (which I wrote about here on 4/26/18), obviously knows this territory well (she comes from a formerly wealthy family, studied at a prestigious boarding school, attended Yale, and lives in New York, and all her fiction directly or indirectly deals with social class). Her inside knowledge manifests itself in hundreds of details about schools, home decoration, manners, dress, and other habits of the affluent. The main characters in “Mrs.” are three couples whose children attend a posh, very selective Upper East Side pre-school, St. Timothy’s. Philippa Lye is beautiful but with a murky past; her husband Jed is a banker from old money, but would rather spend his time on the longtime family farm in Connecticut. Minnie Curtis comes from a poor background but “landed” a rich (also formerly poor) financial industry man, a nasty climber with a trail of rapes behind him, John D. Curtis. The third couple is not wealthy: Gwen Hogan, although formerly a gifted chemist, stays home with their daughter, while her husband Dan is a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office. Other characters include various family members, as well as other parents at St. Timothy’s. The story is told from several points of view, including those of the six main characters, and one small daughter’s perspective. The year is 2009, just after the financial crash. Soon the stories of the various characters become enmeshed in the financial and other improprieties of some of them, and some characters are caught up in difficult moral dilemmas. In addition to the moral dilemmas, there are issues about the alcohol problems of some characters, and about the insecurities that so many of the characters experience as they struggle to gain and maintain increasing status in the social world. Although social class is the main focus, gender issues are definitely explored as well. Women in this environment are often regarded as accessories only, witnesses to the main action by the men. Despite this novel’s being focused on the women’s perspectives, part of what all of the women know on some level is that their power, if any, is largely dependent on that of the men in their lives. “Mrs.” is a serious, thoughtful book about serious topics, but it is also completely engaging, and at times very entertaining. Although it is about 350 pages long, I devoured it over big chunks of two summer days, often when I “should” have been accomplishing other things. But, after all, what is more important than reading? And if not on summer days, when? And if I can classify it as “research” for my work on social class, all the better!