Customer Reviews

What Caroline Knew: A Novel

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With a silky purr, James' protagonist Caroline Stephens draws you effortlessly in to the luxe, luscious world of old New York money in the 1920's. It's a while before you realize that your new friend is a boa constrictor. As the story unfolds, James repeatedly switches the lens through which the reader sees her characters, so that reading the book is like peering into a turning kaleidoscope. The story keeps twisting and tightening right up till the final pages. The book is a pleasure to read: swift, assured and full of wonderful period details.

This book was an easy read, in fact I read it in an afternoon. It was interesting enough; I kept turning the pages to see what would happen to our dear socialite. She's believable, we feel empathy for her but we never quite understand her. What this book lacks is resolution. I just read 200+ pages and Caroline has still taken secrets to her grave. There are still unanswered questions about the portrait. Maybe it is the author's right to leave a mystery unsolved but it violates the rules of "good" writing not to restore readers to a point of equilibrium and the author never takes us there. In the end, an interesting read but seemingly unfinished.

Ms. James began with an intriguing idea: a society matron in the 1920s is scandalized when one of the artists she supports unveils a nude painting of her at an opening.

Unfortunately, Ms. James has a tin ear for history. The New York society she portrays has a philistine ignorance of modern art. But the modern art movement was supported by the wealthiest people in New York society. It would never have gotten off the ground without people named Dodge, Whitney, Vanderbilt and Guggenheim and the lesser lights of society scrambled to keep up. Ms. James is also a lazy writer: there are no "walk ons" of real people, which tests the mettle of a writer of historical fiction. Worse, she just plunks her characters into a milieu she calls the 1920s without bothering to research the era. When she talks about artists her character supports, we get one or two famous names and then just something generic along the lines of "and many others." If she was too lazy to spend an hour in the library, she could have just done what F. Scott Fitzgerald did and make up a bunch of names. Similarly, there is no attention to the way people thought, how they lived or even just of the products they used. The book consists of 21st Century Yuppies in fancy dress.

Like many people who have spent too long at The New York Times, her workmanlike prose is as flat as three day old champagne. The Grey Lady's Style Book is death to distinguished letters and Ms. James did not escape the curse.

James's juicy novel is an elegant, insightful exploration of one woman's brush with fame and notoriety. It's as lush and seductive as a John Singer Sargent portrait. What Caroline Knew is an absolute must-read that can't be put down once started.