First published 2001
Claudia has spent nine years in New York working as a secretary and ghostwriter for an aging socialite who churns out bestsellers. The city promises everything but delivers mounting debts and crushed dreams. Vodka numbs the pain without clouding her mind, unlike gin, which turns treacherous when you drop your guard. And who wants to stay careful? Her psychoanalyst mother always cared more about her patients than her only daughter. Her childhood friend remains oblivious to her secret love. Claudia seeks escape through meaningless sexual encounters and excessive drinking. The seductive yet brutal city keeps grinding away at her ambitions while she struggles between the emotional distance of her mother and her unrequited feelings for someone who knew her before New York changed everything.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, addiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century, contemporary-romance
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: emotional-distance, escape, unreliable-narrator, unrequited-love
Setting: New York
Period: 21st-century
399 pages · Mass Market Paperback · France Loisirs
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, depression, mental-illness