Prospect Park West

In her bitingly sarcastic new novel, Amy Sohn does for Park Slope what John Updike did for New England, and then some. It turns out that the bourgeois Brooklyn mothers of today are even more manipulative, sex-starved and money-grubbing than their Waspy New England counterparts of yore.

In Prospect Park West, Sohn casts a cool eye on four women preening, breeding and falling apart. Rebecca is a freelance writer whose husband hasn’t had sex with her since their daughter was born a year and a half ago. Lizzie is a former lesbian (a “hasbian”) with a biracial baby and an absentee musician husband. Karen will do anything to get an apartment in the chic North Slope, and Melora, the resident movie star, can hardly walk up the block due to her frequent Zoloft, Ativan and white-wine cocktails.

With her hilariously insensitive caricatures of Brooklyn celebs like Philip Gourevitch and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sohn, the author of Run Catch Kiss and a Park Slope mommy herself, is not afraid to topple sacred cows. She captures the agony of poopy diapers, breast-feeding and husbands who’d rather watch gay porn than have sex with their wives. If you’re a fan of Gossip Girl, Sex and the City or anything that features the fantasia of New York as its backdrop, then Prospect Park West is for you. And though the book isn’t quite The Bell Jar, Sohn’s ability to mix genuine disillusionment with humor makes for an entertaining read and an often-insightful take on a bizarre subculture that would like to think it’s the norm.—Jessica Ferri

Sohn reads Wed 9 and Sept 13 at the Brooklyn Book Festival.

Buy Prospect Park West on Amazon.com | Buy it on BN.com

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