American Icon: A Novel [Hardcover]

Pat Booth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1999

As Kate Haywood accepts her "Woman of the Year" award, she is truly happy for the first time in years. Finally she is being recognized: for building a homemaking empire of bestselling books, a top-rated television show, and an award-winning magazine. She has inspired women worldwide to serve homemade apple brown betty, to stencil their bathroom walls with pastel designs, to grow dozens of varieties of peonies in their backyard gardens. She is a role model to millions. But as she dutifully thanks her family in her acceptance speech, she has the nagging sense that something is missing. She knows that she hasn't been a perfect wife and mother, and she resolves to spend more quality time with her family, to have them come first for a change.

But that very night, her dream is destroyed. Peter, the literary agent who pitched Kate's first bestseller back in the 1980s, leaves her after more than twenty-five years of marriage. Kate's life is shattered. She is alone, and she knows that her critics are laughing as the dirty laundry of the world's most successful homemaker is hung out to dry.

Slowly, supported by the love of her daughter, Samantha, she fights back. But she has a decision to make. Is her business enough to keep her happy? Or should she put her career on a back burner and battle to save her marriage? Complicating matters, Steve Gardiner, a handsome sculptor, enters the picture and unlocks the passions that Kate hasn't felt in years. When shocking events conspire to deepen her bonds with both Steve and Peter, Kate is forced to decide between two very different lives. Safety, security, and family - or desire, excitement, and mystery......

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Booth's latest novel (after Marry Me), the saga of a Martha Stewart-like lifestyle guru's tempestuous life, is a for-fans-only effort. In 1970, 20-year-old Kate Haywood, who has "Nordic features chiseled like the ice floes and fjords in which her Viking ancestors had sailed," is a waitress at center-of-everything-hip Max's Kansas City in Manhattan. There, she meets her future husband, literary agent Peter Haywood, who soon turns her good design/fashion/cooking sense into an empire from which the egomaniacal Kate later excludes him. Driven away by Kate's tantrums, Peter leaves her and their daughter, Sam, for her scheming assistant Ruth, knocking Kate into a depression that nearly destroys her business network. Running parallel to this story line is the doomed marriage of Steve (an artist) and Donna (a surgeon), who split when Steve blames Donna for their young son's accidental death. After Kate has rebounded from her own divorce and saved her business, she and the proud but sensitive Steve fall in love in East Hampton. But is her company safe from the backstabbing Ruth? Is Peter gone forever? Booth's melodrama spins merrily on, but the cliche-ridden prose keeps it strictly humdrum. Set in a world where sexually aroused men's voices are "husky," efficient business women look "cucumber cool" and a choice at a forked road will "change her life forever," this uninspired romance fiction lacks panache.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A glamorous Sixties model marries, has children, starts her own business?and then watches it all fall apart. From the author who has taken us from Malibu to Palm Beach.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (January 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316102121
• ISBN-13: 978-0316102124
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,177,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars American Classic...NOT!!!, April 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: American Icon: A Novel (Hardcover)

While I've never been a fan of Pat Booth's novels, this one is especially bad. While the premise is good (a pseudo-Martha Stewart changes from sweetheart to "queen of mean"), Ms. Booth skips years at a time. One page the heroine is young, madly in love with her husband, the perfect mother and perfect wife. The very next page -- 20 years have flown by and Kate has become a person that the reader doesn't recognize. None of the people in the novel are very nice. I didn't really care about any of them or what happened to them. This isn't even a good "beach" book though it could have been. Better luck next time.

I read the first review of the book and expected to find a literary gem (or at least hoped to find one). That reviewer must have been her agent.

1.0 out of 5 stars Is This The Same Pat Booth???, October 23, 2007

By 

Nancy Casseus (Queens, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Icon (Mass Market Paperback)

Sorry Pat! This one's a dud! I couldn't even finish it! This lacks the sizzle that "Malibu", & "Palm Beach" had! WHAT HAPPENED?! You became TAME all of a sudden! I bought this book just on your name alone without even reading what it was about because I loved the other books so much! Sorry, I got as far as Chapter 15 and just couldn't keep my eyelids open any longer! This one's a snoozer! Don't mess with your original formula! The HEAT is what I expect from you!

5.0 out of 5 stars With excellent technical production values, February 16, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Icon (Audio Cassette)

Kate, a glamorous New York City based fashion model falls in love with Peter, a successful literary agent. It's the late 1960s when they marry, move to the Hamptons, and have a daughter. Starting their own cottage-industry business, Kate becomes an enormous success as a best selling author, a magazine publisher, and then the head of a home-making empire. But success is not without its costs. Personal and business pressures drive Kate and Peter into the arms of other lovers. But when a tragedy befalls their daughter, both of them come to realize the truth of their commitment to each other and to their family. American Icon is a superbly written novel that is expertly narrated by Kate Harper in the complete and unabridged production from Chivers Audio Books. With excellent technical production values, this highly recommended addition to any community library audiobook collection has a playing time of 13 hours, 15 minutes.