The Starter Wife (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "She looks terrible..." (more)
Key Phrases: mean high tide line, orange shorts, lifeguard tower, Malibu Colony, Britney Spears, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Gracie Pollock should have suspected that her movie executive husband, Kenny, was cheating on her when he began to wear the earring. But she missed the clues, and at the age of 41 -- which makes her, as a Hollywood woman, almost assisted-living-ready -- Kenny dumps her via cell phone, weeks before their pre-nup would have expired. The heroine of Gigi Levangie Grazer's third novel, The Starter Wife, thus plummets from being a classic Wife Of, botoxed and boob-jobbed -- "easy on the eyes and hard on the 401(k)" -- to being a single mother confronting survival without resources. Well, not quite without resources: She and her 4-year-old-daughter are invited to housesit another Wife Of's glam Malibu digs. So she has a reprieve during which to become reacquainted with her true self and, with luck, snare another man.

"Could a woman over a certain age in Los Angeles be able to find a (reasonable) date?" No reader of this good-natured, fluffy novel will doubt for an instant that she can. Grazer, herself the wife of a Hollywood producer, wrote the screenplay for the feel-good tearjerker "Stepmom," and Starter Wife is the same kind of gentle cultural commentary. It is a world where children behave like children in movies, lobbing winsome, kids-say-the-darnedest-things lines but never causing too much trouble; where money never poses much of an issue in divorce because all the available abodes are as lavish as movie sets; and where single mothers over a certain age look like Susan Sarandon -- and if such women can't get dates, they might as well just drop dead.

Before her life as a Hollywood wife, Gracie had an identity of her own as a successful children's book writer (nothing so threatening as a satirical novelist). As well as having quite nice feet, Gracie is supposed to be observant, with a sharp wit. This Hollywood wife can actually identify lines from Shakespeare. (Okay, she can't tell "Hamlet" from "Macbeth," but we must remember that this is L.A; Gracie's brains, on a 1-to-10 scale, may be "about a seven" in the world at large, but "on the west side of L.A. she was pushing a nine, nine and a half, easy." ) The novel's setup promises that Gracie will serve as "the Jane Goodall of the Beach-Bimbos-and-Bentleys set," skewering Hollywood pretensions. The most enjoyable sections of The Starter Wife do exactly that:

"The demands of a life filled with petty concerns -- Why are the tennis court lights on at eight a.m.? The air-conditioning went above 72 degrees in the guesthouse sitting room! We need new flower arrangements twice a week. Why won't the remote (that cost as much as a new Toyota) turn off the Flat Screen TV in the bar? What is the proper ratio of studio to talent for a dinner party? The orchids in the foyer are dying. Should we serve lamb or salmon at our third dinner party this month? I want a phone on the left side of the master toilet. Who has (imaginary) food allergies? The pool is overflowing. Who doesn't eat meat? That painting doesn't work with the new couch. Who doesn't eat bread? I need another iPod (pre-programmed with Julia Roberts's favorites). The gardener cut the grass too low. The made-in-Tibet screening-room curtains won't open -- had devoured not only Gracie's creativity but, more important, her spirit."

Grazer clearly knows this scene, and is a lively, wry reporter of Hollywood's strident triviality and narcissism. But the novel falters, as many screenplays do, after the setup. The plot twist involving Kenny's new girlfriend, Britney Spears, is flat-out unfunny and reveals the problem with mixing fictional and real characters in a Hollywood novel. Spears feels like an old joke here. Another novelist of Hollywood, Bruce Wagner, has more success using only invented characters as protagonists; he manages to make them even more outré and bizarre than their real-life models.

When Gracie meets her love interest, The Starter Wife leaves comedy behind for romance-novel territory. Gracie and Sam Knight (allusion to Jane Austen's Knightley?) meet cute, when he rescues her from a kayaking accident. He is manly yet sensitive. He is a great kisser. He is also homeless -- but no reader will doubt that he'll turn out to be the prince in pauper's clothing who will not only love Gracie for her spunk, but also allow her to stay in Malibu, entertaining in style her loyal friends (a trio that includes the prerequisite straight-talking, gay interior decorator).

"It's a Malibu fairy tale," Gracie sighs. Indeed. At least the Hollywood version -- real fairy tales, as any reader of the Grimms knows, tend to be a lot nastier and more grisly.

Reviewed by Lisa Zeidner
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Review

"Acidic and unforgiving, Gigi Levangie Grazer's hilariously accurate skewering of the mores -- and the morons -- of Hollywood left a deliciously vile taste in my mouth, and I loved it!"

-- Simon Doonan, columnist for The New York Observer and author of Nasty

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743265025
• ISBN-13: 978-0743265027
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #514,891 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Of the rich, famous and hypocritical, May 30, 2005

By	E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Because she is a real-life "Wife Of," Gigi Levangie Grazer has been hailed as the "on the inside" Hollywood chick-litter. Inexplicably, it turns out, because "The Starter Wife" is full of the vapid, name-dropping superficiality that any housewife from Nebraska could dream up.

Gracie is a "Wife Of" -- wealthy, toned, dyed and perfectly preserved, and married to a Hollywood heavyweight with one kid. Until Kenny hits midlife crisis -- he dresses loudly, gets an earring, and then tells Gracie that he wants a divorce. In the dizzying whirlwind of divorce, Gracie finds out that he's having an affair with Britney Spears (presumably in the months before she started slumming it with Kevin Whatsisface).

A concerned pal lends Gracie her Malibu house, so the newly-divorced can get her bearings and life back on track. And as she wanders the California beaches with her gay pal and married neurotic friend, Gracie finds herself desired by not just one but two men -- a handsome homeless man, and Kenny's dissatisfied has-it-all boss. Can she become more than Kenny's "starter wife"?

Okay, it has a different plot -- one that Shar Jackson might find emotional satisfaction in, admittedly. But the core of "The Starter Wife" is yet another thin plot, with a moronic heroine and lots of name-dropping. It's even worse that much of Grazer's name-dropping is out of date -- since this book went to press, Brad and Jen have broken up. So no one's worried about them procreating.

Grazer's lack of inspiration shows through in the storyline itself, which meanders aimlessly between Hollywood-expose cliches and middle-aged-woman-reinvents-self cliches. The writing meanders as well, as if the author is desperately trying to fill up space. Grazer even has the excruciating taste to name Gracie's gay pal "Will." It's not witty or cute, just embarrassing.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is that Gracie -- the wronged Wife Of-turned-Starter Wife -- is a pill. Despite the men going gaga over her, the supposedly smart Gracie comes across as a bitter airhead, obsessed with age even when she's feeling good about herself. Kenny is a cliche of the Selfish Ex, while Will is a cliche of the Lovable Gay Pal. Only Lou, a tired mogul who wants to know what people really think of him, comes across as a real person.

With more Hollywood tale-telling and absurd cliches, Gigi Levangie Grazer slumps even further in her sophomore effort. Sure it's just a fluff book, but it's really bad fluff.

60 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars False 'Starter', May 23, 2005

By	Dangle's girl (Astoria, NY United States) - See all my reviews

At what point do you keep reading after a character has totally turned you off? I kept thinking that as I plodded through "Starter Wife," pulled along by the witty dialogue and exotic/horrifying setting but disgusted by the main character. Gracie (does she really need a gay boyfriend named Will?) is a whiny, self-absorbed, zero of a character, who pitilessly judges everyone around her while falling into lockstep with the values she supposedly loathes. She sticks around with a jerk until he dumps her, then immediately starts shopping for Jerk No. 2. "Maneater" had a shallow, materialistic heroine as well, but dang, she was a lot of fun. Gracie is obsessed with her age to a point way beyond funny -- into the realm of the truly pathetic, and her character's insecurities seem to track uncomfortably close to the author's, judging by the recent NYT Mag article. Not half as fun as "Maneater," and not half as insightful about Hollywood as anything by Bruce Wagner. Save your money and buy yourself some Botox instead.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh Out Loud Read, June 21, 2005

By	Avid Reader - See all my reviews

I just finished reading The Starter Wife and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an often hilarious laugh out loud read and I recommend it for a quick summer read. Some of the negative reviews on here surprise me. I haven't read a lot of chick lit, but I recently finished The Devil Wears Prada and I found The Starter Wife to be far superior. I plan to read some Bruce Wagner soon so I'll see how that compares. Granted, as one reviewer commented, the 2nd half of the book was a tad unrealistic, but isn't that what fiction is about -- to suspend reality for the reader and sometimes have a happy ending? Most of the books I read are serious/heavy fare (just finished Fall on your Knees and A Fine Balance recently) and it was refreshing and somewhat more relaxing to read a funny smart book. I tend to get very involved in whatever I'm reading so it was nice to finish a book and not feel depressed!