Creatures of Habit

Written with panache, candor and mordant humor, Baumgold's debut novel is a wicked send-up of the '80s, personified by the wretched excess of Manhattan's nouveau riche, socially obsessed billionaires and their pencil-thin, Chanel-clad wives. Her heroine, Libby Alexander, comes from a Jewish family who had old money before they carelessly lost it all. A graduate of the right dancing class and the right schools, Libby is privy to the activities and secrets of the luxury-flaunting echelon of society that she glamorizes in her gossip column, called The Pimpernel. Through Libby's cynical gaze and acerbic tongue, we meet a bevy of characters who are passionately into spending, partying and being validated by media attention. Like Tom Wolfe in The Bonfire of the Vanities , Baumgold has a sure feel for the authenticating details of the breed's sacred rites: the public serving of divorce papers at the de rigueur restaurant, attendance at the Winter Antiques show, etc. Though her large cast of characters are engaged in various kinds of infidelity and business betrayals, she focuses on the frenzied affair between Ralph Lauren-like mogul Danny Gates and the manipulative wife of another tycoon. Baumgold writes with just the right mix of disdain and empathy. Readers will devour her novel with mesmerized attention and unrestrained glee. (June)