A Certain Age: A Novel [Paperback]

Tama Janowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2000

From the bestselling author of Slaves of New York comes a hilarious, clear-eyed, satiric novel about the sad plight of a misguided woman on the make in Manhattan. Thirty-two-year-old Florence Collins is an "aging filly-about-town"--still beautiful enough to be (sometimes) invited to the best parties and the right restaurants, but unmarried and rapidly going broke. In her world, marriage to a wealthy man is all that can save her, although Florence's hard-hearted search for security and status takes her on an inevitable downward spiral.

New York "society novels" at the turn of the nineteenth century gave us a piercing look at the world and rituals of the city's wealthy; Janowitz here casts that tradition in a fresh light, giving us a tirn-of-the-century society novel that demonstrates how little seems to have changed. In a sly and unforgettable portrait of New York's haute monde, Janowitz brilliantly evokes a young woman's struggle for love and survival in the city that is as unforgiving today as it was a hundred years ago.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"It was the sort of education that a young woman might have once had simply in order to be able to make civilized conversation at dinner." A stray passage from an Edith Wharton novel? No, it's Tama Janowitz's tale of Manhattan life in the '90s, which follows a decidedly Whartonian downward spiral. Florence Collins wants a rich husband. And although she is accomplished, a good conversationalist, a snappy dresser, and stunningly beautiful, she can't seem to find one. Why? Because she lives in New York; in her early 30s, she is past her prime; and her name is legion.

Florence disastrously visits the Hamptons, goes out to a lot of expensive restaurants, and halfheartedly performs her job at an auction house, but finds her matrimonial quarry ever elusive. Janowitz tells us, "By high school she had realized that no matter what women filled their lives with, there was still no status for them apart from whoever-whatever they had married." No clue is given as to how Florence comes to this arresting conclusion, but the author chooses to make her pay for her callowness. So predictable is Janowitz's notion of moral failure that we find our once-fastidious gal smoking crack by novel's end as well as friendless and broke. What's missing here are the psychological atmospherics found in The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country. Instead, we get loving descriptions of department-store sprees: "She went to up to the men's department and spent seven hundred dollars on a black cashmere crew neck sweater--three hundred fifty dollars--two black t-shirts, fifty dollars each, a matelot shirt ... for seventy dollars and a pair of brown linen-silk blend trousers with pleats and cuffs, on sale for two hundred." This is yuppie porn--disguised as a scorching indictment of yuppie porn. Janowitz wants to have her sushi and eat it, too. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A sordid, contemporary rendition of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, this unflaggingly downbeat comedy of manners charts the cruelties visited upon fashionable Manhattan women seeking husbands and social status before the clock runs out. Like Wharton's Lily Bart, Janowitz's protagonist is, in the words of a society gossip column, "an aging filly about town," whose head spins with fantasies of a fashionable mate, flights on the Concorde, a 15-bedroom apartment furnished with "Biedermeier, French club chairs, Mies van der Rohe." Shedding money from her rapidly dwindling trust fund, Florence Collins blazes a promiscuous, startlingly self-destructive path from the Hampton estate of her all too ephemeral friends, Nathalie and John de Jongh, whose daughter she carelessly allows into the ocean unattended (an event that leads to the child's eventual death from pneumonia) to vacuous Manhattan cocktail parties, art openings and baby showers. Vying for her attention are a circle of men, from investment banker John de Jongh, who forces himself on Florence while his wife sleeps nearby, then persuades her to invest her last $25,000 in a hopeless restaurant venture; the Italian playboy Rafaello, who visits her for quick sex and introduces her to crack cocaine; and Darryl, an earnest lawyer and advocate for the homeless whom she rejects for his lack of funds. What poignancy the novel offers is continuously undercut by the author's arch contempt for virtually every character, particularly the beautiful and insipid figure of Florence herself, and the novel's other protagonist, the city of New York, whose denizens are "in the convulsive, terminal stages of a lengthy disease, the disease of envy whose side effects were despair and self-hatred." At one point, as Florence flips through a profile of a pampered starlet named Ibis in a glossy magazine, Janowitz (The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group) writes, "If Florence had seen Ibis on the street, she would have strangled her quite happily." By the end of this relentlessly cynical tale, readers may feel the same way about Florence. Author tour. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (July 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385496117
• ISBN-13: 978-0385496117
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,342,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars yuppies suck but they're human, December 29, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Sydney) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Certain Age (Hardcover)

I must start by saying that I totally enjoyed this book. I thought the yuppie label thing was more relevant to the story and characters than that in 'American psycho'. Florence's family back ground (unresolved family issues- probably) coupled with her level of energy, good looks and life in a big city were believable, as was her downward spiral at the end of the book. I didn't feel she was a particularly bad or unusual person just someone who continued to do early twenties stuff in her early thirties. Believe me there are 'groups' of people who live like that in the big city. Janowitz is a great writer and she tackles everything she does with an honesty, freshness and wit that make her one of my personal favourites.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes me even happier that I left Manhattan!, February 28, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Certain Age: A Novel (Paperback)

Altogether, this was a fun, zippy read. Florence was so pathetic, so obnoxious and so utterly resolute in her determination to destroy herself that I found my self cringing, then gingerly turning the page to see what new catastrophe awaited her. Frank Gehry couldn't have conceived a more spectacular downfall than Florence designs for herself. And, as in Gehry's buildings, you wonder how Florence manages to stay upright. Somewhere, there must be a strong core.

I felt that Janowitz's writing sometimes got in the way of her character. The narrator was clearly more intellectual than Florence, and occasionally put thoughts in her head that seemed WAY over it.

Tiny details are off here and there. For example, no self-respecting Italian (of the European variety) butters his bread at any meal other than breakfast.

And, although she obsesses over her character's clothes and shoes, Janowitz fails to mention Florence's handbags. In Florence's narrow little world, this detail would make or break her look.

I have found reading the reviews here almost as fun as reading the book! There is a clear division between New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers. Many "nons" are bursting at the seams with indignation and contempt for Florence. The book certainly seems to touch a nerve with them.

I think that being a New Yorker does give you an insight into this very particular "type." Manhattan is such a small place that any ambitious person will come across a character like Florence sooner or later.

I find myself wondering how 9/11 would have affected Florence's myopic view of herself and the world.

As for comparisons to The House of Mirth, frankly, I found Lily Bart just as shallow and obnoxious. She did, however, have far fewer choices than Flo. Unlike Wharton, Janowitz can't possible expect us to believe that Flo is simply a victim of her times.

Could it be that Florence is the secret monster that however deeply buried, lurks in many of us women? Perhaps that's what upsets us so about her.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and amusing, December 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Certain Age (Hardcover)

This book is an outrageously funny satirical commentary on single life in Manhattan. Janowitz is superb at characterizations, and observations. Brilliant, insightful and amusing.... I couldn't put this book down, but to be clear, it's not for everyone: 'irony is wasted on the stupid.'