The Romantics

By Galt Niederhoffer

Book Overview

""The Romantics" is a smart, edgy novel that is wickedly insightful about class and privilege, amusingly cynical about love and friendship, and thoroughly entertaining throughout. Galt Niederhoffer is an elegant prose stylist and a shrewd social observer."--Tom PerrottaLaura and Lila were once as close as could be--college roommates at the center of a tight-knit group of friends. But the friendship has wilted a bit. Now, ten years after college, the friends--and the boyfriend they shared--have reunited for Lila's wedding at her family's seaside estate in Maine. Laura is reserved, single, and the only Jew in the group, while the bride, Lila, is a WASP-y moneyed golden girl, and the groom, Tom, a swim team star from a working class Catholic background, is a perfect paradox of confidence and confusion. As the wedding draws near and wine flows faster, the disappointments and desires of the reuniting friends come quickly to the surface. A drunken game on the estate's dock goes awry when the revelers are pulled out to sea by the current. When they swim back to shore, they are short by one--the groom. The search throws the group's shifting allegiances into relief and results in new betrayals as well as confessions.With Lila's family's picture-perfect Maine summer house as the backdrop, Laura not only sees her old friends in a new light, but reassesses herself as well--is she the only one of the group destined to be unmarried into her thirties? Was it always this obvious that she was the only Jew in a pride of WASPs? Struggling with the traditionally thankless role of maid of honor--not to mention contending with Lila's formidable mother Augusta--Laura also realizes she can't stop thinking about her complicated, long and intense relationship with the groom. But isn't that relationship far in the past?A wry observer of cultural and social mores, Niederhoffer creates a pitch-perfect group of characters and a winning novel about friendship, class and love.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312373376
• ISBN13: 9780312373375
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.1" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Enjoyed it

I like the in-depth description of each character. If you like Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, you will love this one.

I read it in one sitting.

This is just the kind of novel I love -- lots of insight into human nature and social mores, beautifully written, scandals and mini-drama within a small group of friends (9 twenty-somethings who all went to Yale together), suspense -- all takes place during one wedding weekend. I devoured the book.

"Philadelphia Story" transplanted to Maine...

with the cast of "The Big Chill". I didn't much care for Niederhoffer's first novel, "A Taxonomy of Barnacles". In fact, I didn't finish it (rare for me, actually). Her writing was just way too "precious". It's as if she was trying to channel the "Royal Tenenbaums" and it just didn't work. This novel, her second, is much better. Not "5 star" better, but at least readable. The same cast of rich WASPs who populated the wedding family of the "Philadelphia Story" are here, complete with domineering mother, bratty little sister (called here "Minnow" - oh, don't you just love the nicknames the rich give each other?)and marginalised father. The bride, whether named "Tracy" or "Lila", is the same blond goddess we've seen before and will see again. The supporting players of the wedding, the "wedding party" is made up of "Big Chill" extras. While Niederhoffer tries to give the three groomsmen and the three bridesmaids some individual identities for the reader to respond to, I'm afraid all six just sorta merge into one big pile of late 20's Yalies. The two "stars" of the book are Laura, the maid of honor, who has had an off-and-on relationship with Tom, the groom-to-be since college 10 years earlier. Tom had basically flitted from Laura to Lila, back and forth over a ten year period, and now, has found himself marrying Lila. Not for any good reason, it seems, because he has always loved Laura. Laura and Lila have also been "best friends" for this period, not best friends who truly love each other, but best friends competing for the same man, so they have to keep each other in clear sight. This book is pretty good, and it's not long, so if you're so inclined, dear reader, go to it!