Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir

141 Pages·2016·0.99 MB·English

by  Wednesday Martin

“If anthropologist Jane Goodall had landed on Park Avenue with a Birkin bag
instead of the wilds of Tanzania with a notebook, this is the book she would have
written…a smart, funny, and original dissection of the tribal rites of rich and
striving New Yorkers.”—Steven Gaines, author of Philistines at the Hedgerow
What happens when a modern Dian Fossey moves to the social jungle of
Manhattan’s most exclusive zip code…and raises her children there?
When Wednesday Martin arrived on the Upper East Side with her husband and
young son, she discovered a tight tribe of glamorous, uber-wealthy mommies with
sharp elbows and massive ambitions. In a world where morning greetings went
unreturned, getting play dates was a blood sport, and even walking down the
sidewalk was an exercise in dominance and submission, she was a culture-shocked
outcast.
Using her background in anthropology and primatology to find her footing, she
made like Goodall in Gombe, observing mating practices, display rituals, and moms
acting like olive baboons at school drop-off. She channeled Margaret Mead to
understand the tribe’s seasonal migrations, cultish exercise rites, and her own
overpowering desire to possess a fetish handbag. But she also saw that not even
sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs could protect this ecologically released
tribe from calamity. When Wednesday’s life turned upside down, she learned how
deep the bonds of female friendship really are.
I absolutely loved this memoir and could not put it down! It's incredibly clever…
astonishingly illuminating. Somehow, Martin manages to be caustically
perceptive but also generous, funny, moving, and erudite all at the same time.
This is one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time.”
— Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and
The Triple Package
“When mean girls and wannabes grow up, they become the women so perfectly
depicted in Wednesday Martin's funny and intelligent memoir. How wonderful
that she survived the jungle of Park Avenue with strong female friendships
intact.”
—Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes
“Wednesday Martin's blissfully funny memoir is also the definitive guide to
survival on the Upper East Side—or wherever there are social ladders to climb.
What a fresh new voice!”
—Molly Jong-Fast, author of The Social Climber's Handbook
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
Dear Reader:
Every city has an Upper East Side—an exclusive neighborhood where the wealthy
live and socialize and shop. All of us can recognize the superficial markers of social
hierarchies, and have at least once succumbed to the unreasonable and compelling
desire to climb them. Why do we want that status-bestowing handbag when we
know it’s really just a handbag? What makes one particular preschool an elite
institution when it’s really just kids coloring and singing in a circle? Why do people
who seem to have everything they could ever want still lie awake at night?
Luckily for us, we have Wednesday Martin to explain it all. Wednesday is one of
those women, one of Manhattan’s wealthy, beautiful, thin, blonde, beautifully
dressed women. If you caught a glimpse of her getting into her chauffeur-driven
SUV, you probably wouldn’t suspect that she has a PhD from Yale and an academic
background in anthropology and primatology. One day, a chance run-in on East
Seventy-Ninth Street with a lady wielding an Hermès Birkin handbag caused
Wednesday to begin looking at her world of Upper East Side mothers as an
anthropologist would. The result is this original, intelligent, funny, and
openhearted book.
We love novels like The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada because they
reveal the juicy, secret details of a hidden world. Primates of Park Avenue is full of
these delicious revelations: why most dinner parties are sex segregated; the
surprising norms of alcohol and drug use; what to wear (and what your real estate
agent should wear) when you go apartment hunting; and the economics of
marriage, including year-end bonuses for wives. But Wednesday goes deeper than
the glossy, moneyed surface, showing us how mothers everywhere, from
Manhattan to Miami to Mali, are driven and united by the same fears and desires.
I’m convinced that Primates of Park Avenue is going to be a big bestseller; it will be in
every beach bag from the Hamptons to Malibu, and it is a superb example of social
research. I’ve had a blast editing this book, and I know you’re going to love reading
it. If you’d like to share your comments with us, please e-mail
[email protected].
Best wishes,
Trish Todd | Executive Editor | [phone] |
[email protected]

ALSO BY WEDNESDAY MARTIN
Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the
Way We Do

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Copyright © 2015 by Wednesday Martin
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4767-6262-3
ISBN 978-1-4767-6272-2 (ebook)