FICTION
Fizzy cocktail blend
SAVITA IYER
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The Debutante Divorcee has more to offer than the jacket might suggest.
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The Debutante Divorcee, Plum Sykes, Miramax Books, $23.95.
IN a world where high-power hostesses grieve over a man's death only because it means his funeral will supersede their party on the jet-set's "must-be-seen-at" list, an institution like marriage is bound to be as passé as last season's Gucci sunglasses.
And certainly, 30-something Lauren Blount, heroine of Plum Sykes' new novel The Debutante Divorcee, believes it's more fun to be divorced than married.
The uncontested head of New York's ultra-thin, ultra-chic and ultra-rich recently divorced set, Lauren is the scion of old American wealth, and the world is her oyster. She believes marriage is a farce; since most husbands, no matter how committed they might seem, usually end up cheating, as hers did.
Marriage blues
Her friend, newlywed Sylvie Mortimer, is determined to prove her wrong, and to make Lauren believe that marriage actually does have meaning and can last an eternity.
But when Sylvie's husband begins to travel far more than his business requires him to, and when mysterious hotel bills pop up in his dry-cleaning, she fears that Lauren may indeed be right, and that her wonderful, seemingly perfect, husband has strayed. Worse yet, Sylvie is convinced he has fallen prey to one of the international jetset's notorious "husband huntresses", gorgeous women whose sole aim in life is to lure away another's mate.
The playing fields of the uber-rich are evidently familiar terrain for Sykes, author of 2004's bestseller, Bergdorf Blondes, and a contributing editor at Vogue. The Debutante Divorcee is a fizzy cocktail that blends a perfect mix of Beautiful People, extravagant parties, designer clothes, gorgeous New York apartments and luxury hotels in exotic locations that span the globe from Manhattan to Mexico and Megeve in the French Alps.
Luscious descriptions
It's the kind of novel even the best of us, although we might hateto admit it, might not be able to resist reading, even if it's just to salivate over Sykes's luscious descriptions of such follies as honey-coloured fox fur (of course, we'd never dream of wearing it ourselves), "18th century Italian-inspired celadon wallpaper, hand blocked with silver bouquets of roses" and "fluffy framboise macaroons served on pastel pink china", the kind of extravagances that can for a moment, make any woman feel like an heiress.
With a couple of plot twists — an `S'-shaped diamond pendant, a mysterious, "un-GOOGLE-able man" and, surprisingly, the incomparable value of true love — Sykes has also added the right amount of intrigue to ensure that The Debutante Divorcee has more to offer than its pink, Louis Vuitton suitcase-embossed jacket cover might suggest.
High-end literature it definitely is not, and its story line is obviously predictable. But Sykes' forte lies in the spontaneity and tongue-in-cheek style of her writing, which suggests that though she may sound completely serious when detailing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, she actually takes neither herself, nor them, too seriously.
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