Alex Witchel�?s first novel, Me Times Three, was praised by Joan Didion as �?an irresistible dissection of love in the city.�? Now Witchel returns with a sophisticated, witty, sexy story that exposes the world of upper-class New Yorkers and the media that perpetuate their myth.

Ponce Morris is a beautiful, rich widow who�?s been dubbed �?the spare wife�? because she�?s the perfect companion to the wealthy, powerful couples she socializes with. She�?ll go to sports events with the husbands and throw elegant dinner parties and shop with the wives. She�?s cool and nonthreatening because the two things everyone knows for sure are that Ponce doesn�?t like sex and doesn�?t have a romantic bone in her body. Over the years, she has managed other people�?s lives�?and her own�?perfectly. Ponce has everything under control, exactly the way she likes it.

Until . . . Babette Steele, an ambitious aspiring journalist, finds out that Ponce is having an affair with a socially prominent and very married man and decides to break the scandal in a juicy magazine piece. For Ponce�?s circle, day-to-day existence quickly becomes a complicated game of social and professional chicken�?whoever outsmarts and outmanipulates the other will win. And there is a lot at stake, not only for Ponce but for her friends, all of whom are in the midst of crises of their own: a philandering novelist who hasn�?t been able to write since his breakout Wall Street best seller, an aging billionaire who can�?t seem to resist young women (the younger the better), a legendary news show producer on the decline, a big-name political journalist looking to rebound from his wife�?s death, and an editor at a glitzy magazine that covers the worlds of politics, fashion, and Hollywood. As Ponce�?s life threatens to come apart at the seams, the author takes us into a world she knows intimately: a dynamic Manhattan filled with opinion makers and social fakers.

This is a vibrant, trenchant novel about ambition, love, friendship, and the intoxicating allure of getting ahead . . . and trying to stay there.
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Book details

• Format Hardcover
• Pages285 pages
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN10140004149X
• ISBN139781400041497