Posh Paperback - 2007

From the jacket flap

It' s a world of over-the-top entitlement and tribal customs, a world of surface interactions and deep needs-- a world of private schools and privilege. Griffin is a preparatory school on Manhattan' s Upper East Side with the best students-- and the richest parent body-- the city has to offer. The emotionally charged lives of the teenagers and adults that collide and intersect at Griffin include those of:
--Kathryn " Lazy" Hoffman is the headmistress at the Griffin School, in the midst of an affair she almost can' t remember why she started. Lazy ministers to children, but her cross to bear is the parents-- especially those who wonder why their little darlings aren' t going to Harvard
--Michael Avery, smart driven, and clearly on the fast track to Cambridge, but so troubled that he becomes a burden to his girlfriend
--Julianne Coopersmith, a sweetly compassionate child of divorce who happily wears designer hand-me-downs from her best friend, and adores Michael even in the face of his neediness and meltdowns
--Susan Avery, who is detached from her brilliant but tortured son, and finds it' s easier to love her Chinese Crested Hairless than her own child
--Dee Coopersmith, whose life driving a cab couldn' t be a bigger contrast to the rest of the parent body at Griffin, but whose sense of self and fierce protection of her daughter have unexpected consequences
Fast-paced, gently satirical, yet deeply felt, POSH is a surprisingly poignant and knowing novel distinguished by its spare and elegant prose.