The Beauty [Hardcover]

Gloria Nagy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2001

When the two women closest to him die within a week of one another, John Duckworth, ex-crime reporter and full-time cynic, must come to grips with his own closed-off emotions as well as the weight of his family's past. Part Yankee aristocrat and part "wharf rat" Irishman, John Duckworth cares for only four things in life: his kind but emotionally fragile sister, Faith; her precocious daughter Penelope; his feisty Irish grandmother; and Newport, Rhode Island, his hometown.

But New York is also the setting for Nagy's novel; and it's a struggle to hold on to the things he loves in a city which disorients-a city of hypocrisy, arrogance and greed-and when a new life beckons for John and Faith on Cape Cod, they jump at the chance, transforming an old ruin into a new hotel-the Inn at the Edge. They have no idea, however, of the chilling villain awaiting them in Jasmine Jones, a beauty beyond compare who walks into their inn the first week of business and doesn't leave until their lives and loved ones are utterly destroyed.

The Beauty is a novel of this moment with the feel of yesterday's noir, and Nagy captures it perfectly-with her trademark style and wit-the trendy Manhattan hotels, the cell phones, the New Age snake oil, and the ever-widening gulf between form and content that is life at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fatal Attraction goes to Newport in this thriller that starts out satirizing East Coast class distinctions and ends by piling up more bodies than a teen screamer. When ex-crime reporter John Duckworth returns to New York City after his sister Faith's suicide, he must identify the mutilated corpse of another woman, this one brutally murdered in her Upper East Side apartment. Cynical by nature, romantic at heart, John recalls his relationships with both deceased: Faith, the lovely but emotionally fragile wife of a successful businessman, and Jasmine Jones, aka Wendy Pulski, aka Madeline James, the panther-like beauty who seduces John and convinces Faith to trust her all the better to destroy their lives. Faith, John and Jasmine meet at the Inn at the Edge, a Newport hotel Faith is restoring with her friend, Sari. Jasmine arrives looking like their dream guest, but that dream turns to nightmare as she settles in. Novelist-screenwriter Nagy (A House in the Hamptons, etc.) fills her story with lively characters (innocent young Pebble, wise old Grandma O, tough detective Daisy Mae Decker) and clever dialogue ("Andy's idea of emotional distress is... whimpering... during The Lion King"), but it is the series of social sketches (the Upper West Side psychologist vs. the East Side psychologist, the Newport WASPs vs. the poor Irish, the Las Vegas showgirl vs. Manhattan socialite) that give the novel its flair. Halfway through, Nagy sets satire aside to propel her plot to a climax, which despite many twists and revelations proves neither as exciting nor as convincing as her New York and New England tableaux. By that time, however, the reader is too engrossed to put the book down and is dragged along to a Hollywood finale.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Nagy's ninth novel will engage readers with its snappy dialogue and zippy prose and then promptly lose them with its mind-boggling plot. Sardonic John Duckworth, ex-crime reporter, jumps at the chance to leave New York and start a bed-and-breakfast on Cape Cod with his emotionally fragile sister, Faith. They call it the Inn at the Edge. Four murders and one arson later, that name seems especially prescient. It all starts with their very first guest, the beautiful Jasmine Jones who insinuates herself into the Duckworths' lives by manipulating Faith and seducing John. A psychopath of extraordinary proportions, Jasmine single-handedly engineers the destruction of Faith and John's personal and professional lives. Nagy can be very funny as she lampoons various trendy New York locations and gives her narrator the staccato rhythms of a noir character, but her outlandish plot and will limit the appeal of this novel. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 290 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; 1st edition (June 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585671495
• ISBN-13: 978-1585671496
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,658,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gloria Nagy is a novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of nine novels including the best selling, "A House In The Hamptons" Her critically acclaimed novel, "Looking for Leo," has been adapted as a mini-series for CBS. Her last novel, "The Beauty" is set in Newport and Cape Cod and has been called "a terrific fable about the futility of escape, the inevitability of evil and the power of redemption." She is currently working on an independent film adaptation of her novel, "Virgin Kisses," and a musical review for women entitled, "Where Do I Go Now?". Ms. Nagy has just completed her latest novel "The Cruise".

Gloria Nagy is a member in good standing of the Authors Guild, Author League and the Screenwriters Guild of America. She is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference in Monterey, California (Technology, Entertainment & Design) and has been interviewed on social issues by Nightline. She has appeared frequently on television and has done over fifty radio interviews on subjects relating to her work and how her themes intersect the zeitgeist. Critics have called her "the social chronicler of her time" and "The female Tom Wolfe" for her ability to "stick pins in all the hot air balloons." Her opinions and observations have been expressed in reviews and articles for national magazines such as Lears, Traveler, Self and Cosmopolitan, as well as in speeches and writing seminars.

Her novels have been published around the world and translated into numerous languages including German, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and Dutch.

Titles by Author:

"Virgin Kisses" - Warner Books/Penguin International - 1978
"Unapparent Wounds" - William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1981
"Natural Selections" - Villard Books, 1985
"Radio Blues" - St. Martin's Press 1988
"A House in the Hamptons" - Dell Publishing, 1990
"Looking for Leo" - Delacorte Press, 1992
"Marriage" - Little, Brown and Company, 1995
"The Wizard Who Wanted To Be Santa" - Sheer Bliss
Communications LLC, 2000
"The Beauty" - Peter Mayer/Overlook Press, June 2001

Ms. Nagy lives in Newport, Rhode Island with her husband Richard Saul Wurman. They have four children, six grandchildren and three dogs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nagy hits the nail on head, April 11, 2011

By 

Virginia Treherne-Thomas (Middletown, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beauty (Hardcover)

I read this book because of its Newport, RI connections and this author has really nailed the place. Her characters are not even outragous. Believe me, they are REAL. These folks exist and it's alot of fun to follow them on their escapades, capers and social faux pas. It's witty, it's also sad, and ofcourse it's hysterically funny. I am so looking forward to "Seasick" because Ms. Nagy has an amazing way with just the perfect phrases that decribe her charcters social messes. This book would make a hella of a good movie. It's got everything.

1.0 out of 5 stars Too Scary To Finish, June 23, 2011

By 

J. Conaway - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Beauty (Hardcover)

The more I read, the more repulsive and scary this material became to me. So, I stopped reading and made a point of throwing it in the trash, something I've only done with one other book in my life.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tale of Seduction & Destruction, April 6, 2011

By 

JAMES BRUNO "Master of the Political Thri... (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beauty (Hardcover)

What happens when a rapturously beautiful but psychopathic Jezebel meets a good natured bachelor whose family background straddles both sides of the tracks? Serious trouble. And The Beauty dishes it out in generous quantities. John Duckworth is an ex-crime reporter who escapes the fast lane of life and work in New York for a slower pace at Cape Cod and sedate Newport, RI, where he grew up. He and his emotionally fragile sister, Faith, open an inn at the Cape, which quickly becomes a popular destination after sultry Jasmine Jones goes quickly from being guest to co-manager. Things couldn't be sweeter: lots of business, Faith and her daughter, Pebbles, thriving; John falls in love with Sari, the earthy ex-wife of his book agent. Then Nagy gets the plot wheels spinning till they're smoking. A plague of rats strikes the inn, killing business. Pebbles inexplicably puts on more weight. Her new puppy is beheaded. Sari ditches John after he is seduced by the manipulative Jasmine. Then the bodies pile up: John's agent, his grandmother, his friend's daughter, his sister Faith, by grisly suicide. John puts two-and-two together. His sleuthing reveals Jasmine is behind all the evil, but not without his falling again for her witchy wiles. The quickening pace keeps the reader turning the pages right up to the surprise climax.


A hallmark of Nagy is her scalpel-like dissection of New York and Newport social elites: "Most (Newport men) grew up to be well-bred, well-dressed, well-educated losers drifting along on the current of apathy and appearances, too afraid of failure - of sailing outside their ancestral bay - to risk doing anything on their own." And her acerbic commentary on the condition of turn-of-the-century homo modernus: "We are an egotistic, stubborn, and lazy genus; we do not like to admit we've been mistaken, easier just to keep skipping down the wrong road, hoping there's a way out without having to go all the way back to the point of confusion." Her stories call up the detailed and critical social commentary of Fitzgerald and James as well as the satire and woman's view of Olivia Goldsmith. The Beauty will seduce you with memorable characters, plot twists and that uncomfortable feeling that that very attractive person who is taking an interest in you may be more than you had bargained for. Much more.