The Overnight Socialite

For some reason I thought Bridie Clark was British - but she's not. She's a graduate of Harvard, and right now I am reading her latest book, The Overnight Socialite. It's a variation on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which was later made into a movie (one of my favorites) - My Fair Lady.

It's about Wyatt, a stuffy Manhattanite, a wannabe intellectual who just can't seem to be taken seriously - and Lucy, a wannabe fashion designer from Minnesota. Wyatt undertakes the 'remaking' of Lucy into a Manhattan socialite as a scientific experiment, and, of course, so he can write a book that will make him a household name in the scientific world - and a mainstream author to boot (so sure is he of the appeal of his subject matter). Lucy becomes the socialite - and you can guess the rest, even if you don't know the story of Pygmalion. But, really, who hasn't seen My Fair Lady?

I like this book...one of the things I like about it is that it's told from multiple points of view. A lot of authors can't really pull this off without being confusing - but Clark does. She maintains Wyatt and Lucy as the two main characters. The peripheral characters are there to essentially tell the story. This book is fun and a fast read - a nice change of pace.

I did some research on Bridie Clark (just a little) for my most recent column in the Courier and Press - and I found that she's quite accomplished. Besides being a Harvard grad, she's also written for Gawker, and helped found Blue State coffee. And this is her second published novel. And she's only 32...this woman is practically my hero.