The Right Address: A Novel [Paperback]

Carrie Karasyov (Author), Jill Kargman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2005

The Right Address sears through the upper crust of New York’s glittering Park Avenue scene to dish the dirt on the ladies who lunch, the gents who club, and the desperate climbers who will stop at nothing to join the backstabbing, champagne-sipping, socialite-eat-socialite stratosphere.

When Melanie Sartomsky, wily Floridian flight attendant, snares billionaire divorcée Arthur “the coffin king” Korn, she is catapulted into the crème de la crème of Park Avenue society, where hiring the wrong decorator is tantamount to social suicide, and where, if you’re anyone, your personal assistant has a personal assistant. But Melanie quickly discovers that in the world of the rich and idle, malicious gossip is as de rigeur as owning twenty pairs of Manolo Blahniks. And despite her frenzied plunge into the charity circuit and the right dinner reservations, her neighbors are Givenchy-clad vultures who see her as nothing more than a reinvented trailer trollop. To make matters worse, when a snide society-rag journalist rakes her over the coals, Melanie’s reputation is toast.

Meanwhile, Melanie is not the only billionaire in the neighborhood coming unhinged. Kleptomania, adultery, plagiarism, and a grisly Harlem sex murder are just a few of the secrets swirling under the pedigreed patina of furs and emeralds on Park Avenue.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman, childhood friends who met at one of New York's most elite prep schools, The Right Address seeks to expose the cruel and wicked ways of the top echelon of the Park Avenue crowd. Peppered with seemingly unbelievable accounts of social-climbing at its worst, the characters in this novel glide from party to party, relishing every possible chance to destroy each other's reputation while simultaneously air-kissing one another. The story revolves around Melanie Sartomsky, a former airline stewardess who is thrust into the world of shatoosh parties ("they make cashmere feel like emery boards") and Narcolepsy benefits after she marries Arthur Korn, a billionaire who found his fortune in funeral homes. As Melanie tries to adjust to her new life, the authors expose us to the darker side of high society--steamy affairs between CEOs and their custodial staff, salacious scandals in Harlem flophouses, and a discreet arrangement between a kleptomaniac's husband and Tiffany, where this pedigreed socialite enjoys pocketing the wares.

A prime example of the Gossip Lit genre, which began its ascent after The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada hit the scene, The Right Address could have been an amusing, albeit extreme, expose of the lives of the rich and well, rich. However, the unsteady cadence of the novel, coupled with the absence of any real human emotion, turn this effort into simply one nasty gossip session after another. The reader never feels invested in any of the many characters, and even when our heroine comes to her senses, there's no real sense of relief or delight. So while the tell-all nature of the book may make it hard to put down, the only real joy lies in the fact it ends quickly. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Money can't buy style, learns the social climber protagonist of this novel. Nor can money write an interesting book. Despite their claims to an insider's view, authors Karasyov and Kargman, who met at the Upper East Side's elite Spence School, have written an achingly dull novel about a nouveau riche heroine with trailer park origins who aspires to the New York jet set. Melanie Korn, neé Sartomsky, approaches the social world of the superrich upon her marriage to billionaire Arthur Korn, who's cornered the market on caskets, funeral homes and retirement homes-but true acceptance eludes her. Although she lives with her husband at "741 Park Avenue, the most coveted building in all of New York City," the old money crowd refuses to warm to the former stewardess. Melanie kisses up to one stereotype after another, including the catty town gossips, the "grande dame of Park Avenue," her philandering husband and the beautiful heiress. As they hand McDonald's applications to the homeless, attend charity balls and angle for attention from the society papers, these Upper East Siders reveal their true lives: they shop, they lunch, they bitch. With its awkward prose, unsympathetic heroine and clichéd supporting cast, this attempt at a scathing social critique doesn't measure up to its predecessors in the skewer-the-socialite genre, though undoubtedly there will be some well-heeled readers seeking to ferret out the characters' true identities.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1st Edition. edition (March 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767921267
• ISBN-13: 978-0767921268
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #967,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars World of The Nanny Diaries without the prose or insight, May 17, 2005

By 

Gwen A Orel (Millburn, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Right Address (Hardcover)

This novel could have been so much better, and it's hard to forget that when reading. There's no question that the authors know the world they're satirizing inside and out, and at first it's fascinating to have an entree into the world of High Society. But that fascination isn't enough to carry a whole book (especially when other books take on the same world: The Nanny Diaries and Bergdorf Blondes).

Melanie Korn is a sweet bubble-headed blonde who's way out of her league. But unlike say the heroine of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, another book about a social-climbing gal, she lacks the humor and irreverance to make her vulgarity really likable. The shifting points of view and multiple narrative threads don't help-- there's a really nasty sub-plot about a neighbor who wants to kill his Latina mistress. The book wants us to sympathize only with him as she's portrayed as a terrifying shrew, but the snobbery is ingrained in the narrative throughout.

Then, once Melanie has her dreams dashed, I kept waiting to see her somehow triumph anyway and make it to the Top via a surprising strategy. Instead the moral of the story is there's more to Manhattan than just a few blocks, that people live on the West Side, that love and marriage and children are Good. Well, duh. The last thirty pages of the book were a homily to the joys of the Real World-- it's well meant but terribly condescending. Where do they think their readers live?

The two mean gossips who narrate some of the book are tiresome, and never get the comeuppance they really deserve.

I gave this two stars because it's such a missed opportunity. With better editing and direction this could have been a sort of Jane Austen type book for our times. Instead, it's just a minor example of gossip lit.

The prose is fair-- better than The Devil Wears Prada but nowhere near the humor and elegance of The Nanny Diaries.

It's a quick read, but there are better quick reads out there. On the plus side, the book does leave you feeling grateful the world of High Society is so very irrelevant. Ah, you say as you shut it, thank goodness I am middle class!

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Trashy even for a trash novel, August 22, 2004

By 

Maria P. "Maria P." (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Right Address (Hardcover)

Yes, this "gossip novel" has all been done before so there's nothing new going on here. I recognized descriptions from other books and tv shows ("Seinfield", "Sex and the City"). The biggest difference is that this book is the most poorly written, poorly edited piece of garbage I have ever suffered. In particular, the dialogue (no matter the character, their age, or the situation) is written in the same shallow vocabulary of an early 30-something Spence School grad. "Let's have a contest to see how many exclamation points can be used in one paragraph! OK, great!" Thankfully, this book was a gift so it wasn't my money wasted in purchasing it...just wasted my time reading it.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Point??, May 12, 2005

By 

J. Simpson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Right Address (Hardcover)

I love a good, fun, guilty pleasure type read as good as the next woman but this book had no point. It was just silly. It is fun to read books with these funny and extravagant characters when something actually happens. This was more of a childish running commentary. I got to the end and just wondered why even waste time writing something like this?