The Innocents [Hardcover]

Francesca Segal (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 5, 2012

*** Winner of the 2012 Costa First Novel Award *** "It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm."
--Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community--a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.

But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit. Ellie--beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent--offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home?

Francesca Segal was born in London and studied at Oxford and Harvard University before becoming a journalist and critic. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, and The Observer, among other publications. For three years she wrote the Debut Fiction Column in The Observer and has been a features writer at Tatler. She divides her time between London and New York.

"With understated wit, empathy and a cinematic eye of detail, Segal brings alive a host of characters so robust that you can easily imagine them onscreen... A winning debut novel."
--People

"Inspired by The Age of Innocence, Segal's book is warmer, funnier, and paints a more dynamic and human portrait of a functional community that is a wonderful juxtaposition to Wharton's cold social strata."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A crafty homage... [Segal] writes with engaging warmth."
--Entertainment Weekly, Grade: B+

"Readers who enjoy fast-paced, gently satirical literary novels, fans of Allegra Goodman, and book group participants will find a Shabbat dinner's worth of noshing in this accomplished debut novel."
--Library Journal

"An emotionally and intellectually astute debut."
--Kirkus

"[A] delightful first novel... wise, witty and observant."
--The London Times

"Segal writes with an understated elegance."
--The Observer (UK)

"The Innocents is written with wisdom and deliciously subtle wit... This is a wonderfully readable novel: elegant, accomplished, and romantic."
--Andre Aciman, author of Out of Egypt, Call Me by Your Name, and Alibis

"A moving, funny, richly drawn story... Full of real pleasures and unexpected wisdom, this book sweeps you along."
--Esther Freud, author of Love Falls and Lucky Break

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stylish, witty, wonderfully moreish" -- A.D. Miller "The Innocents is an exuberant, sensitive, witty novel, elegantly written, partly a study of universal dramas of love, marriage and fear, partly a very modern, sassy London story, partly a Jewish novel. I found it irresistible" Simon Sebag Montefiore "A moving, funny, richly drawn story of a young man's attempts to find out who he wants to be when there are so many others who know best. Full of real pleasures and unexpected wisdom, this book sweeps you along" Esther Freud "A beautiful, bittersweet novel" -- Gin Phillips "Written with wisdom and deliciously subtle wit, in the tradition of Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford. Francesca Segal has a remarkable ability to bring characters vividly to life who are at once warm, funny, complex, and utterly recognizable. This is a wonderfully readable novel: elegant, accomplished and romantic" Andre Aciman --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Francesca Segal was born in London in 1980. Brought up between England and America, she has been a freelance contributor to many of the UK's most prestigious publications. She has been a features writer at Tatler, and for three years wrote the Debut Fiction column in The Observer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Voice; First Edition edition (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781401341817
• ISBN-13: 978-1401341817
• ASIN: 1401341810
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #341,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Francesca Segal was born in London in 1980. Brought up between the UK and America, she studied at St Hugh's College, Oxford before becoming a journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and both American and British Vogue, amongst others. She has been a features writer at Tatler, and for three years wrote the Debut Fiction column in The Observer.

THE INNOCENTS is shortlisted for the 2012 Costa First Novel Award.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Age of Innocence in the age of no innocents June 11, 2012

By Joanna Daneman #1 HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I have often wondered what would happen if you wrote a novel using an existing plot structure and dressed it with new characters. Here, we have one of my absolutely favorite novels, the masterful "Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton, not only with the same theater set repainted and repurposed, but the same characters, dressed, not as Nineteenth Century New York Social List aristocrats, but as contemporary middle-class (really upper middle class) Jewish Londoners , a reverse of the New York social world--semi-ostracised from British high society but just as hermetic.

The characters are the familiar Newland Archer reborn as Adam Newman and May Welland becomes Rachel Gilbert. The third leg of the triangle Ellie Schneider is like Countess Ellen Olenska in that she's a creature of two lands belonging to neither (in this case, British-born but American-raised) and drenched in scandal. However, where the novel departs significantly from "Age of Innocence" is that Ellie truly is scandalous. Where Ellen Olenska sought to extricate herself from the socially acceptable but unbearable marriage in name only, an exchange for wealth and status, instead Ellie is besmirched by a past including making a porn film. She seems to take great care in flaunting herself as a modern "fallen woman" where it's not sex outside of marriage, but a lifestyle and inappropriate dress that make for clucking tongues.

The rest of the cast show up recognizably--Mrs Manson Mingott becomes Ellie's grandmother, Ziva, equally brave, somewhat unconventional and willful. Even the van der Luydens show up early, pillars of the community, fabulously wealthy and just as reclusive and exclusive.

The problem I had with this novel is that the characters failed to make me care much about them--I found them flat and sometimes their actions were unbelievable or at least not honest. And this is where the book fails where "Age of Innocence" succeeds and for a very essential reason: Wharton's novel is about honesty and truth and when it fits in and does not fit into strict social conventions. "The Innocents" is not about truth but more about a hermetic social group and what happens when one of its members stretches the bounds and finds himself in uncharted waters. So the essential truth of the original novel, so vital to the very structure of the book, is what didn't carry over and so we're left with a new theatrical set that looks as if it could be the familiar old story but very soon, we find that we're looking at caricatures that parade on Wharton's set, seem to face the same conflicts, but really, it's a new story in old clothes. And the very essential thing; Ellen Olenska is scandalous because she refuses to go along with the dishonesty that is kept undercover and winked at; Ellie flaunts the scandal and is scandalous. This essential difference guts the reason for the conflict (honesty versus conventionality) in the new Ellen/Ellie and frankly, I found her annoying right from the get-go. She had none of the instant allure of Ellen Olenska and the mystery is one that initially, is more driven by lurid curiosity than sympathy.

The writing itself is excellent--I found the scenes engaging, but ultimately, I failed to really care about the characters, disliked some of them immensely, and wished they'd come newborn and not reincarnated from Wharton's masterpiece. I wouldn't NOT recommend this book, because it's full of what makes a novel enjoyable (like Rules of Engagement) but it's not marvelous, and ultimately, I'd found it annoying. Great concept, wonderful look at Jewish society in London but relatively unsatisfying in the end.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid debut of middle-class Jewish London June 6, 2012

By switterbug TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is an enjoyable and relatively conventional suburban drama of a close-knit Jewish community in NW London. Likewise, I applaud this debut author's sublime irony and chutzpah in her choice to revitalize but change the original version of THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, a novel written by the celebrated, anti-Semitic author, Edith Wharton, that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921! (Wharton, Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry James were all privileged people of their times) Segal gets the last laugh by writing this tidy, classy novel about manners and family, and security versus passionate spontaneity. THE INNOCENTS takes place in contemporary times.

Twenty-eight-year-olds Adam Newman (cf. Newman Archer in AOI) and Rachel Gilbert (May Welland) have been together for a dozen years, engaged to be married, and comfortable and secure in their tight knot of overlapping and extended family and friends. Rachel has never been with any other man but Adam, and Adam's experience is limited (by today's standards). He is smug in his knowledge of Adam and Rachel, Rachel and Adam. Although his father died when he was very young, leaving an unresolved grief in his heart, Rachel's father, Lawrence, has embraced him like a son, even hired him to work as an attorney in his firm. They are as close as in-laws could be. The marriage in a year will seal the deal, and bring the families even closer.

"There was no life event--marriage, birth, parenthood, or loss--through which one need ever walk alone. Twenty-five people were always poised to help. The other side of interference was support."

In walks the prodigal cousin, returned from New York, Ellie Schneider (Ellen Olenska in AOI), a twenty-two-year old statuesque, bottle-blonde beauty. She was kicked out of the MFA creative writing program at Columbia for making a skin flick that surfaced, and is mantled with controversy for her ongoing affair with a famous married art dealer in NY, a scandal that is about to hit the media, and started when she was only sixteen. She dresses provocatively, which doesn't go down well with the relatives at synagogue, especially on a High Holy Day such as Yom Kippur, where this novel opens.

Adam is transfixed and ignited by the sight of her even as he is repelled and intimidated by her cavalier independence from the strictures and reproaches of their insular community. He cannily aspires to accidentally on purpose run into Ellie, bringing himself closer and closer into dangerous territory, like in AGE OF INNOCENCE. They develop a muted, cryptic, but inwardly tender kinship, circling around each other, chastely, also similar in spirit to Wharton's book. Meanwhile, Rachel's wedding plans are irritating him, because he wants to be married "quickly" and without fanfare, to be wed and put stray longings to rest.

Segal paints a vivid portrait of this clannish society's mores, although most of the secondary characters are set pieces to further the story. There's Ziva, the 88-year-old grandmother, (Rachel's), an erudite immigrant who survived the Holocaust; Adam's mother, still a grieving widow after all these years, and other people that serve as color and background or to advance the plot.

The middle section moves gradually, perhaps stiffly at times, and includes a few hard-to-swallow events. For example, Lawrence put Adam on as Ellie's private attorney, to help clean up her scandals, if possible, and do damage control to her public persona. No matter how much Lawrence trusts Adam, I can't imagine any man placing his almost son-in-law in the position of private confidante to the provocative Ellie. Lawrence is quite socially conservative and protective of his own family. Even if he can trust Adam, why throw him to the lions? There's support and then there's just not thinking. In the author's defense, Archer helped Ellie in AOI, but, here, it feels inorganic.

You don't have to be Jewish to like this theme-driven novel. The characters, actually, are universal, as are the conflicts that this book explores, mainly certainty in traditional values versus uncertainty in following your passion, the fallout of lingering grief, and the impact that your decisions have on others. Segal also included a subplot that reflects the economic casualties of our times, but if felt a bit forced, a plot-driven convenience.

This is a solid, four-star first novel, and it doesn't distract by being an updated version of a classic. Rather, the presence of the older novel serves to illuminate that some things, at its heart, haven't changed, even if the décor is renovated and a century has passed. Segal has admirable control of her narrative, and her prose is clean and smooth. I look forward to her next novel.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great update to a classic! June 5, 2012

By shelfishness

Format:Hardcover

Prior to reading Francesca Segal's, my knowledge of Jewish culture was limited to Adam Sandler songs and Seinfeld reruns and my connection to Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence was linked to a college class. Segal, however, manages to make her modern version of this classic completely welcoming, just like the Jewish families she writes of, and provides an endearing education to the Jewish culture of North West London.

Adam Newman is a young successful lawyer, engaged to Rachel Gibson who he has been dating since high school. The two have grown together and Adam, whose own father passed away when Adam was eight, has been lovingly accepted in Rachel's family, especially her father who treats him as a son. As the wedding date approaches, however, Adam begins to question the union, especially when Rachel's supermodel cousin, Ellie, re-enters the picture.

Ellie is everything that Rachel is not - worldly, carefree and fiercely independent and forces Adam to question his isolated existence in North West London with its shabbat rituals and Jewish traditions. He recognizes that Rachel is an ideal Jewish wife and is what he grew to expect as a member of such a close-knit community, but fears that life with her might further enmesh him into the only only world which he knows.

The story is enticing and is filled with voice. Adam is undeniably human and his confusion is easily understood, yet I found myself relating to Rachel as well. Segal has written a captivating story with lively characters and Jewish traditions, crafting a wonderful contemporary version of Wharton's classic. The Innocents, which arrives in bookstores in June, is an engaging read even for those who are not familiar with the original The Age of Innocence or Jewish culture. Segal warmly introduces readers to both. (Review from shelfishness.blog.com)