The Right Address

When Melanie Sartomsky, wily Floridian flight attendant, snares billionaire divorcée Arthur "the coffin king" Korn, she is catapulted into the crème de la crème of Park Avenue society, where hiring the wrong decorator is tantamount to social suicide, and where, if you're anyone, your personal assistant has a personal assistant. But Melanie quickly discovers that in the world of the rich and idle, malicious gossip is as de rigueur as owning twenty pairs of Manolo Blahniks. And despite her frenzied plunge into the charity circuit and the right dinner reservations, her neighbors are Givenchy-clad vultures who see her as nothing more than a reinvented trailer trollop. To make matters worse, when a snide society-rag journalist rakes her through the coals, Melanie's reputation is toast.

Meanwhile, Melanie is not the only billionaire in the neighborhood coming unhinged. Kleptomania, adultery, plagiarism, and a grisly Harlem sex murder are just a few of the secrets swirling under the pedigreed patina of furs and emeralds on Park Avenue.

Authors Jill Kargman and Carrie Karasyov know a thing or two about their subject matter. They met at the Upper East Side's chic Spence School and claim that The Right Address is inspired by "the insane socialites we've eavesdropped on our entire lives." Meow.

So kick off your Jimmy Choos, crack open the fois gras, and get ready for a rollicking, unforgettable tour of the richer-and-bitchier-than-thou set.

When flight attendant Melanie Sartomski meets and marries the fabulously rich head of a coffin empire, it would seem to be the culmination of a lovely dream. However, Melanie soon learns that it's not your fortune that counts - it's what you do with it. Melanie's Park Avenue peers, the ladies who lunch, gossip maliciously and consistently about everything Melanie does that is not in line with their fashions. To them, she's a parvenu and an arriviste, and nothing she does is going to change that. A hatchet job by a society journalist only worsens Melanie's reputation. If you've ever wondered about the habits of the idle rich, and thirsted for envy-enriching detail, this field guide to New York's most solvent and least sane will titillate you no end.

Publishers Weekly

Money can't buy style, learns the social climber protagonist of this novel. Nor can money write an interesting book. Despite their claims to an insider's view, authors Karasyov and Kargman, who met at the Upper East Side's elite Spence School, have written an achingly dull novel about a nouveau riche heroine with trailer park origins who aspires to the New York jet set. Melanie Korn, ne Sartomsky, approaches the social world of the superrich upon her marriage to billionaire Arthur Korn, who's cornered the market on caskets, funeral homes and retirement homes-but true acceptance eludes her. Although she lives with her husband at "741 Park Avenue, the most coveted building in all of New York City," the old money crowd refuses to warm to the former stewardess. Melanie kisses up to one stereotype after another, including the catty town gossips, the "grande dame of Park Avenue," her philandering husband and the beautiful heiress. As they hand McDonald's applications to the homeless, attend charity balls and angle for attention from the society papers, these Upper East Siders reveal their true lives: they shop, they lunch, they bitch. With its awkward prose, unsympathetic heroine and clich d supporting cast, this attempt at a scathing social critique doesn't measure up to its predecessors in the skewer-the-socialite genre, though undoubtedly there will be some well-heeled readers seeking to ferret out the characters' true identities. (Apr.) Forecast: Karasyov and Kargman, who grew up on the Upper East Side and wrote and produced the film Intern, will drum up publicity with an eight-city author tour plus national media attention and advertising. The tedium of the book, though, will disappoint readers looking for another Nanny Diaries. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman wrote and produced the film Intern. Carrie lives in Santa Monica, while Jill still makes her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.