Caitlin Macy

In the well-heeled milieu of New York's Upper East Side, coolly elegant Philippa Lye is the woman no one can stop talking about. Despite a shadowy past, Philippa has somehow married the scion of the last family-held investment bank in the city. And although her wealth and connections put her in the center of this world, she refuses to conform to its gossip-fueled culture. Then, into her precariously balanced life, come two women: Gwen Hogan, a childhood acquaintance who uncovers an explosive secret about Philippa's single days, and Minnie Curtis, a newcomer whose vast fortune and frank revelations about a penurious upbringing in Spanish Harlem put everyone on alert. When Gwen's husband, a heavy-drinking, obsessive prosecutor in the US Attorney's Office, stumbles over the connection between Philippa's past and the criminal investigation he is pursuing at all costs, this insulated society is forced to confront the rot at its core and the price it has paid to survive into the new millennium. Macy has written a modern-day House Of Mirth, not for the age of railroads and steel but of hedge funds and overnight fortunes, of scorched-earth successes and abiding moral failures. A brilliant portrait of love, betrayal, fate and chance, Mrs marries razor-sharp social critique and page-turning propulsion into an unforgettable tapestry of the way we live in the 21st Century.

BONUS: This edition contains a Spoiled discussion guide.A young woman does a good deed for her nanny, only to have it go horribly wrong. A newly married woman struggles to gain the upper hand with her self-assured cleaning woman. An anxious woman desperate for an authentic experience makes a rash decision to leave the grounds of her Moroccan luxury hotel. In this sophisticated and provocative story collection, acclaimed author Caitlin Macy turns her unsparing eye on well-heeled thirtysomething women who, despite their education and affluence, struggle to keep their footing in their relationships with their friends, spouses, and children—not to mention their help. Full of surprising, sometimes shocking insights and brimming with outrage and compassion, Spoiled is a remarkable collection from a boldly talented writer.

Caitlin Macy's remarkable first novel is an evocation of a time and a place in which those things that were always so dependable--money, class, family--are threatened on all sides.Narrated by George Lenhart, scion of a family who lost their fortune but not their good name, The Fundamentals of Play follows five friends from prep school as they enter adult life in New York City in the aimless, early nineties, before the internet explosion. They work entry-level jobs at investment banks, spend weekends in the Hamptons. At their center is the fickle, elusive Kate Goodenow. Everyone is in love with Kate and only George understands her heart was captured long ago, and for good. Hailed as a Great Gatsby for the end of the twentieth century--The Fundamentals of Play introduces a brilliant new Lost Generation longing to live careless lives, while the situations around them are increasingly fraught with importance--and the world threatens to leave them behind.

From the award-winning author of Mrs. and The Fundamentals of Play  comes a brilliant and biting short story collection about pride, privilege, and our nagging need to belong. In an era of “hot takes” and easy generalizations, this collection reclaims the absurdities and paradoxes of life as it is actually lived from the American fantasy of “niceness”. In Macy’s world, human desires and fatal blind spots slam headlong into convenient, social-media-driven narratives that would sort us into neat boxes of insider or outsider; good or bad; with us or against us.   Time and again, whether at home or in the age-old role of Americans abroad, Macy’s women see their good intentions turn awry. A woman who tries to do a good deed for an underprivileged child sees it go horribly wrong. A wife, attempting to be a good host to a friend’s strange ex-boyfriend, finds herself in a compromised situation. And, in the title story, a newlywed fancies herself a Euro-sophisticate until an accident reminds her just how truly foreign she really is. In tales where shocking and sometimes brutal events disabuse characters of their most cherished beliefs, Macy forgoes easy moralization in favor of uncomfortable truths that reveal the complexity of what it means to be human.