Everybody Rise

June 22, 2015
The upstart heroine of this debut novel by New York Times reporter Clifford wages a one-woman assault on the old-money snobbery of the Upper East Side, before the Wall Street stock market crash of 2008. Evelyn Beegan, a new-money 26-year-old whose social-climber mother finagled her into the right prep schools, sells her soul in order to succeed in her first job at a social networking site called People Like Us. In order to win over those at the center of the young Upper East Side elite so she can use their names on the PLU site, Evelyn uses her connections from school to wheedle invitations to Adirondack camps and charity events. She spends more money than she has and lies about her own background as she claws to the top of the social heap, shedding integrity and eventually a very nice young man on her way up. Evelyn scores big when she befriends socialite Camilla Rutherford, who gives her access to her parents’ friends and prestigious charity balls, until Evelyn’s deception and the expense of keeping up appearances threatens to overwhelm Evelyn. While this novel displays none of the melancholy irony of the Sondheim song for which it is named, it is an amusing page-turning beach read. But if the author is trying to suggest that after 2008, class and the UES no longer hold sway, her argument is thin.

October 26, 2015
The upstart heroine of this debut novel by New York Times reporter Clifford wages a one-woman assault on the old-money snobbery of the Upper East Side before the Wall Street stock market crash of 2008. Raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland by a charismatic lawyer and a mother who futilely yearned to be part of “high society,” Evelyn Beegan went to an elite New England boarding school and rubbed elbows with wealthy old-money families, though she was only middle-class herself. Now a job at a start-up social network for “1-percenters” requires her to worm her way into that social set—and she finds herself addicted to the heady world of debutante balls, museum benefits, and women who spend their days lunching, shopping, and going to spas. Her desperate social climbing leads her to lie outrageously about her background, and she gets deep into debt trying to keep up with the leisure class. Narrator Kellgren has a blast with the voices here—plummy Thurston Howell tones for aristocratic rich men, a bratty prep-school/Valley girl voice for a spoiled debutante, an expansive Southern accent for Evelyn’s dad, and even an authentic German accent for a housekeeper. Her marvelous narration makes an entertaining listen. A St. Martin’s hardcover.