The Pretty One: A Novel about Sisters
Lucinda Rosenfeld, 2013
Little Brown & Co.
305 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316213554
Summary
Perfect. Pretty. Political. For nearly forty years, The Hellinger sisters of Hastings-on-Hudson-namely, Imperia (Perri), Olympia (Pia), and Augusta (Gus)—have played the roles set down by their loving but domineering mother Carol.
Perri, a mother of three, rules her four-bedroom palace in Westchester with a velvet fist, managing to fold even fitted sheets into immaculate rectangles. Pia, a gorgeous and fashionable Chelsea art gallery worker, still turns heads after becoming a single mother via sperm donation. And Gus, a fiercely independent lawyer and activist, doesn't let her break-up from her girlfriend stop her from attending New Year's Day protests on her way to family brunch.
But the Hellinger women aren't pulling off their roles the way they once did. Perri, increasingly filled with rage over the lack of appreciation from her recently unemployed husband Mike, is engaging in a steamy text flirtation with a college fling. Meanwhile Pia, desperate to find someone to share in the pain and joy of raising her three-year-old daughter Lola, can't stop fantasizing about Donor #6103. And Gus, heartbroken over the loss of her girlfriend, finds herself magnetically drawn to Jeff, Mike's frat boy of a little brother. Each woman is unable to believe that anyone, especially her sisters, could understand what it's like to be her.
But when a freak accident lands their mother to the hospital, a chain of events is set in motion that will send each Hellinger sister rocketing out of her comfort zone, leaving her to wonder: was this the role she was truly born to play?
With The Pretty One, author Lucinda Rosenfeld does for siblings what she did for female friendship in I'm So Happy for You, turning her wickedly funny and sharply observant eye on the pleasures and punishments of lifelong sisterhood. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 31, 1969
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Raised—Leona, New Jersey
• Education—Cornell University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Lucinda Rosenfeld is an American writer and the author of four novels.
Her first novel, What She Saw in Roger Mancuso, Gunter Hopstock, Jason Barry Gold, Spitty Clark, Jack Geezo, Humphrey Fung, Claude Duvet, Bruce Bledstone, Kevin McFeeley, Arnold Allen, Pablo Miles, Anonymous 1-4, Nobody 5-8, Neil Schmertz, and Bo Pierce was published in 2000. The book follows the romantic travails of a girl named Phoebe Fine, beginning in elementary school and continuing into her mid-twenties. Each chapter revolves around (and is named after) a boy or man who played a role in Phoebe’s life. The book was excerpted in The New Yorker as a part of its Debut Fiction series (under the title, “The Male Gaze”).
In 2004 Rosenfeld published Why She Went Home , a sequel to What She Saw. . . The second novel centers around Phoebe’s return to her family’s suburban home at the age of thirty to care for her ailing mother and rethink her life’s goals.
Rosenfeld's third novel, I’m So Happy For You, published in 2009, is about competitive thirty-something best friends, Wendy Murman and Daphne Uberoff.
The Pretty Ones: A Novel about Sisters, published in 2013, centers on the rivalry among three sisters and their relationship with their controlling mother.
Rosenfeld's essays have appeared in: The New York Times Magazine, Creative Non-Fiction, New York magazine, Glamour and many other publications. Rosenfeld also wrote the "Friend or Foe" advice column for Slate.com from 2009 to 2012.
Personal
Rosenfeld grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, where she attended the Leonia Public Schools before going to the private Dwight-Englewood School for high school. At Cornell University, she majored in comparative literature.
Rosenfeld is married to economics writer John Cassidy of The New Yorker. They live in Brooklyn, New York and have two young daughters. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
While the title of Rosenfeld's latest would have you believe that this story revolves around Pia, the prettiest Hellinger daughter, the real focus is the incessant drama that drives a wedge between three sisters. All in their late 30s, the sisters continually bicker and attempt to one-up each other: middle child Pia is irked that Perri, the eldest with control issues and CEO of a home organization company, and Gus, a terrible gossip, found success in their respective fields while her own art career has floundered. Perri, a workaholic mother of three, lacks sympathy for Pia's single motherhood; she and Gus speculate about the identity of their niece Lola's father, while Pia still finds herself smarting over an ill-fated relationship with a married man. As Perri becomes increasingly shrewlike, she bristles at her unemployed husband's poor homemaking skills. Meanwhile, Gus's lover leaves her and, perplexingly, she finds herself pining for a man. The situation implodes when Gus spills the secret of Perri's impulsive blunder, and though a whopper of an event brings the sisters together, the book winds down to an unsatisfying nonending. Despite some occasionally stiff writing, Rosenfeld (I'm So Happy for You) does do a stellar job of developing each personality, and the characters remain true to their nature throughout.
Publishers Weekly
Although the novel's twists and turns are entertaining, it's the sisters' realistic swings from jealousy to unity that make it compelling.Once again, the author of I'm So Happy for You portrays women with insight.
Booklist
A sly novel about competition, jealousy and love as experienced by three sisters in New York. Imperia, Olympia and Augusta are not only saddled with their mother's obsession with ancient Greece, they are also victims of her penchant for criticism and categorization.... Old jealousies threaten to tear the sisters apart. A witty character study of that contentious organism: sisterhood.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions1.
1. Olympia is supposed to be "the pretty one" in her family, as well as "the flaky one," the chronically late one, and "the artistic one." To what extent do you think the labels are accurate? How do you think they've hindered or encouraged her progress in life? If you are a sister (or brother), what is your reputation in the family, and how do you think it has affected you as an adult?
2. Characterize the dynamic among the three Hellinger sisters when we first encounter them together on New Year's Day. Do you think they treat one another fairly? Unfairly? Explain.
3. What do you think of Olympia's having sought out information about the anonymous sperm donor she used to father a baby? In her circumstances, would you have done the same thing?
4. How does the Hellinger family dymamic seem to change after the sisters' mother, Carol, is struck by a falling streetlamp bulb? More generally, what do you think of the way Carol has raised her daughters?
5. Speaking of motherhood, what do you think of Perri's approach to raising kids? Do you think she's too uptight? What about Olympia's approach? In what ways are Perri and Olympia tryng to do things differently from how Carol did them?
6. Do you think Perri is justified walking out on Mike? How so?
7. How does the arrival of Jennifer Yu affect the Hellinger sisters? Do you think Olympia is right to forgive her father for what he did? Do you think Perri is right to be critical of Jennifer Yu for showing up at the house without an invitation?
8. Do you think Gus is meddling or accting out of love in going behind Olympia's back and trying to figure out who Lola's father is?
(Questions issued by publisher.)