A group of friends in New York City, tied by bonds that go back to their prep school days, find their cozy world threatened when an upstart computer entrepreneur wins the heart of the woman they idolize, the divine Kate Goodenow.
Caitlin Macy's remarkable first novel is an evocation of a time and a place in which those things that were always so dependable--money, class, family--are threatened on all sides.
Narrated by George Lenhart, scion of a family who lost their fortune but not their good name, The Fundamentals of Play follows five friends from prep school as they enter adult life in New York City in the aimless, early nineties, before the internet explosion. They work entry-level jobs at investment banks, spend weekends in the Hamptons. At their center is the fickle, elusive Kate Goodenow. Everyone is in love with Kate and only George understands her heart was captured long ago, and for good.
Hailed as a Great Gatsby for the end of the twentieth century--The Fundamentals of Play introduces a brilliant new Lost Generation longing to live careless lives, while the situations around them are increasingly fraught with importance--and the world threatens to leave them behind.
Caitlin Macy's remarkable first novel is an evocation of a time and a place in which those things that were always so dependable--money, class, family--are threatened on all sides.
Narrated by George Lenhart, scion of a family who lost their fortune but not their good name, The Fundamentals of Play follows five friends from prep school as they enter adult life in New York City in the aimless, early nineties, before the internet explosion. They work entry-level jobs at investment banks, spend weekends in the Hamptons. At their center is the fickle, elusive Kate Goodenow. Everyone is in love with Kate and only George understands her heart was captured long ago, and for good.
Hailed as a Great Gatsby for the end of the twentieth century--The Fundamentals of Play introduces a brilliant new Lost Generation longing to live careless lives, while the situations around them are increasingly fraught with importance--and the world threatens to leave them behind.
Review 1:
"Kate Goodenow is...such a type she scarcely seems real. Nevertheless, she's the axis on which Caitlin Macy's first novel spins....She's also something of a bore....Much of the time, Macy's characters say and do the most improbable things. It's hard to stifle the giggles...."
06/04/2000
Review 2:
"Macy's eye for the sparks that fly when her honed and not so honed sensibilities rub together is nearly unerring, and it's hard to imagine anyone more capable of writing, eventually, the quintessential chronicle that this novel is straining to become."
06/19/2000
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