Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir
Wednesday Martin, 2015
Simon & Schuster
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476762623
Summary
Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe.
After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place.
She understood the other mothers’ snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns; display rituals; physical adornment, mutilation, and mating practices; extra-pair copulation; and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking, and hilariously unexpected.
Every city has its Upper East Side, and in Wednesday’s memoir, readers everywhere will recognize the strange cultural codes of powerful social hierarchies and the compelling desire to climb them. They will also see that Upper East Side mothers want the same things for their children that all mothers want—safety, happiness, and success—and not even sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs can protect this ecologically released tribe from the universal experiences of anxiety and loss. When Wednesday’s life turns upside down, she learns how deep the bonds of female friendship really are.
Intelligent, funny, and heartfelt, Primates of Park Avenue lifts a veil on a secret, elite world within a world—the exotic, fascinating, and strangely familiar culture of privileged Manhattan motherhood. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.S., University of Michigan; Ph.D., Yale University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Wendy "Wednesday" Martin is an American author, blogger, and commentator on parenting, step-parenting, and popular culture. She has written for Psychology Today, New York Post, Daily Telegraph, New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Fitness, Glamour, and Huffington Post. To promote her two books, she has commented on CNN, NPR, BBC radio, Fox News, and Weekend Today.
Background
Martin was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Michigan where she studied anthropology. She also received a doctorate in comparative literature and cultural studies from Yale University. Her doctoral work examined early psychoanalysis and anthropology.
Martin has taught literature and cultural studies at Yale, The New School, and Baruch College.
Books
Martin is the author of Marlene Dietrich (1995); Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel and Act the Way We Do (2009), and Primates of Park Avenue (2015).
Primates controversy
Martin moved to the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan with her family in 2004. Inspired by Jane Goodall's work, she began researching her experiences there for Primates of Park Avenue. The memoir documents life among the wealthy, stay-at-home mothers in the area, examining the women's behavior from a social researcher's perspective.
In May, 2015, prior to the release of Primates, Martin published an article in the New York Times detailing the practice of "wife bonuses," which she uncovered in her research for the book. According to Martin, some of the Upper East Side wives receive "bonuses"—in the form of cash payouts—from their husbands as a reward for domestic performance. Subsequent articles in other papers, however, refuted the practice.
Further articles—in the New York Post and Washington Post—also noted discrepancies in the book, prompting Martin's publisher, Simon & Schuster, to point out that altering names, dates, and other details out of concern for privacy is not uncommon in memoir writing. A disclaimer to that effect will be included in future editions of Primates. Martin insists, however, on her work's accuracy: "I stand by what I wrote, absolutely 100 percent."
Personal
Martin is married to Joel Moser, a lawyer, financier, and adjunct professor at Columbia University. The couple has two sons together (born in 2001 and 2007) and two-daughters from Moser's previous marriage. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/2/2015.)
Book Reviews
An amusing, perceptive and, at times thrillingly evil takedown of upper-class culture by an outsider with a front-row seat…Martin’s writing is confident and evocative…. Her reading of the fashion attire of real estate brokers for "triple mint" apartments is brilliant…at a time when a social comedy of the rich a la Tom Wolfe has been lost in national discourse…. [I]t’s fun to dip into a sophisticated, if silly, look at the Upper East Side’s Twilight Zone. Primates of Park Avenue is also a good reminder that as much as we may envy the wealthy, they fight every day for a place in their own social hierarchy, too.
New York Times Book Review
Juicy, sexy, bawdy stuff...the perfect summer beach book...the tasty tome we'll all be devouring when the weather warms.
New York Daily News
Applying the chimpanzee research of Jane Goodall or the observations of bonobos by Frans de Waal to one's neighbors and co-workers is great fun…, Martin rewards those of us in humbler circumstances the undeniably pleasant frisson of superiority that comes with finding fault with those better endowed financially, socially, sartorially.
Chicago Tribune
Martin puts her academic background (anthropology classes and a doctorate in cultural studies) to witty good use in describing this wealthy tribe’s extremes…it became clear to me, reading Martin’s book, that our Bay Area tribes aren’t so different from those of New York.
San Francisco Chronicle
Picture Real Housewives, add in pop-science, and you have Wednesday Martin’s new book.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A very funny, and slightly scary, look at the denizens of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Connecticut Post
An eye-popping insider's guide.
People
Think privileged NYC wives are another species? Martin goes undercover in this dishy memoir and reminds us that we all have something in common.
Glamour
Amusing...incisive...a wryly entertaining guide to this rarefied subculture.
Economist
Recalls Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique…. Primates is pacy and skillfully weaves cultural insight with personal anecdote…. This is an intriguing insight into a closed world. It is easy to dismiss the subjects as frivolous and mean, which many seem to be. But our envy and schadenfreude makes the rich a compelling curiosity.
Financial Times
The Midwest-raised Martin is easy for readers to sympathize with as she attempts to find new friends while old ones drift away.... It's hard, though, to care about her neighbors—and even about Martin when she finds herself coveting an $8,000 Berkin bag in order to show dominance within the pack.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This anthropological journey into the wilds of New York City's most exclusive zip code could have easily devolved into condescension, but instead it proves that mothers everywhere want the same thing: health and happiness for their progeny.
Library Journal
Any population is fair game for anthropological research, so why not the super-rich, super-thin, and oh-so-well-dressed mothers of New York's Upper East Side?... Illuminating and fun.
Booklist
[T]he book becomes a useful guide for...upwardly mobile...women looking inward to understand themselves better—or...to socially maneuver more efficiently. Sometimes funny but effective for the same reason a Birkin is: it's designed for a certain group of people, and likely them alone.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In her introduction, author Wednesday Martin asks herself "who were they really, these glamorous, stylishly turned out women with sophisticated babies?" (2). Answer Wednesday’s question with your group. Who are the women of the Upper East Side really? Is there an Upper East Side in your town? Did your conception of these women change after reading Primates of Park Avenue? Why or why not?
2. On page 8, Wednesday discusses her strong desire to fit in with the mommies of her new neighborhood, and for her son to fit in by extension. She writes that from her studies in literature and anthropology, she knows that "without a sense of belonging, and actually belonging, we great apes are lost.... Particularly female ones...do not fare well." Do you think that all people feel this way to some extent? What about all mothers? Is wanting to fit in and feel a sense of community particularly important for new mothers?
3. Why do you think Wednesday Martin chooses to frame the beginning of her memoir as an academic study? Does the format add humor? Does it give greater credibility to the author? Both? Think about how you would describe your own world anthropologically. Are you part of a tribe? If so, which tribe?
4. Discuss the way gender figures into life on the Upper East Side, according to Primates of Park Avenue. Wednesday writes on page 24 that "in Manhattan, the woman is in charge of finding a place for the family to live." What else do the women seem "in charge" of in Manhattan? Of what are they decidedly not in charge?
5. "Women on the Upper East Side, particularly women in their thirties and women on the downhill slope of middle age, are utterly attuned to and obsessed with power" (83). Consider this power obsession in connection with Wednesday Martin’s obsession with acquiring a Birkin bag. What is the implicit connection between expensive handbags and power? Does owning a Birkin on the Upper East Side make one more powerful? What is your tribe’s "it" bag? Is it a "fetish object"?
6. Many of the women in Primates of Park Avenue are described as hyper-dedicated, particularly when it comes to their bodies. Describing a workout class in the Hamptons, Wednesday Martin writes that these women, herself included, put themselves through hell "to bond with their fellow tribe members, but also to measure up to, and to take the measure of, others, day by day, evening by evening, event by event, class by class" (129). Does their physical appearance symbolize something intrinsic? Something about their worth? What is the connection between the body and the person, in the case of an Upper East Side mommy?
7. What surprised you the most about Wednesday’s memoir? Which aspect of these women’s lives feels most foreign to you and your life? Which aspects feel more familiar?
8. How does the loss of Wednesday’s unborn daughter, Daphne, change the course of the story? Do you think losing a baby changes her perspective on life—particularly life on the Upper East Side?
9. Compare and contrast Wednesday Martin with her new circle. How are they similar? How do they differ? According to what you’ve read, does Wednesday retain her subjective view of this "tribe," or does she become too similar to be subjective?
10. "From an anthropological perspective, these wealthy women who seem and are so fortunate are also marooned in their sex-segregated world" (162) writes Wednesday Martin about the marriages she sees all around her in New York City. She describes these so-called arrangements as "fragile and contingent and women are still dependent...on their men" (163). Does sex segregation and complete dependence on one’s partner seem strange in the twenty-first century, or do these marriages seem relatively standard? Do you agree with Wednesday that these women are perhaps in a less enviable position than one might assume? Why or why not?
11. Consider the ways in which anxiety is described in Primates of Park Avenue. Do you agree that "having too many choices is stressful" (178), or that a luxurious lifestyle ultimately leads to more—not less—unhappiness?
12. Discuss the title of the memoir: Primates of Park Avenue. Do you agree, as the title suggests, that these women who live a certain kind of lifestyle on the Upper East Side are really no different than any other women anywhere? Are we all just animals, doing what we can to survive and create the safest, most favorable conditions we can for our families?
13. Primates of Park Avenue is ultimately a testament to the strength of all women to endure the pain that so often accompanies motherhood. In her grief, Wednesday discovers another side of the beautiful, competitive women around her: love. In her time of need, these women came forward and offered emotional support and understanding, bolstering the bond between women of the same tribe who know "just how closely the territories of mothering and loss overlap" (198). Discus this "secret," as Wednesday coined it, with your group members. Why do you think motherhood, in particular, feels so deeply connected to loss?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)