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Elements of Style
Elements of Style , the Pulitzer Prize—winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s first novel, is a scathing comedy about New York's high society facing the post—9/11 world. Francesca Weissman, an Upper East Side pediatrician rated number one by Manhattan magazine, floats on the fringes of the upper strata of privilege and aspiration. Through her bemused eyes we meet the thoroughbred socialite Samantha Acton; relentless social climber Judy Tremont; Barry Santorini, an Oscar-winning moviemaker accustomed to having his way; his supermarket heiress wife, Clarice; and more, tossed together in a frothy stew of outrageous conspicuous consumption and adulterous affairs that play out on Page Six. But when Wasserstein’s madcap tour of the social lives and mores of twenty-first-century Manhattan veers into tragedy, we finally see the true cost of her characters’ choices, and the beating heart of this dazzling novel.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
27 people are currently reading
642 people want to read
About the author
Wendy Wasserstein
60 books71 followersWendy Wasserstein was an award-winning American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She was the recipient of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 264 reviews
August 2, 2025
Wendy Wasserstein, best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright on Broadway, dabbled on the side in the writing of novels. Published in 2006, Elements of Style is pure social satire and explores the lives of the affluent on New York's Upper East Side.
Francesca Weissman, a pediatrician, brings the ballast; anchoring the work with a downtown practice she has just enlarged to include the children of low-income families - creating some consternation among her wealthy clientele. Francesca doesn't much care, and it is through her that we are introduced to the privileged social set; the doyennes, the climbers, the nouveaux riche. We are given a season with New York's elite, in all its aristocratic glory. Easy would it have been to create caricatures of these figures, but that doesn't happen here. They are lampooned in a congenial way, with great humor and self-depreciation.
This is a lovely bit of froth atop a literary latte, should you be in the mood for something diverting.
Francesca Weissman, a pediatrician, brings the ballast; anchoring the work with a downtown practice she has just enlarged to include the children of low-income families - creating some consternation among her wealthy clientele. Francesca doesn't much care, and it is through her that we are introduced to the privileged social set; the doyennes, the climbers, the nouveaux riche. We are given a season with New York's elite, in all its aristocratic glory. Easy would it have been to create caricatures of these figures, but that doesn't happen here. They are lampooned in a congenial way, with great humor and self-depreciation.
This is a lovely bit of froth atop a literary latte, should you be in the mood for something diverting.
February 13, 2012
I have been reading a string of really bad books lately. So while this one was also really bad, at least it was marginally entertaining. I need to stop checking out books off the "recommended" shelf at my local library. Clearly, whoever picks those books and I have completely different tastes.
Anyway, I was in Wendy Wassterstein's play called "The Heidi Chronicles" in college, and it is a story very near and dear to my heart. I loved its focus on a woman on the edge of the feminist revolution struggling, and failing, to have it all. So I was intrigued to read something else by her.
Elements of Style focuses on a series of wealthy and universally detestable socialites living in NYC, and takes place much more recently, in the last decade. Each character is concerned almost exclusively with appearances and with maintaining their social status. I've read other books about this type of people (e.g. Bonfire of the Vanities) that were much more interesting and nuanced. This book, however was pure farce. It kept me reading, mostly because it was mildly comedic and because I wanted to see if any of the worthless-yet-priceless characters redeemed themselves in the end. The answer was no.
Anyway, I was in Wendy Wassterstein's play called "The Heidi Chronicles" in college, and it is a story very near and dear to my heart. I loved its focus on a woman on the edge of the feminist revolution struggling, and failing, to have it all. So I was intrigued to read something else by her.
Elements of Style focuses on a series of wealthy and universally detestable socialites living in NYC, and takes place much more recently, in the last decade. Each character is concerned almost exclusively with appearances and with maintaining their social status. I've read other books about this type of people (e.g. Bonfire of the Vanities) that were much more interesting and nuanced. This book, however was pure farce. It kept me reading, mostly because it was mildly comedic and because I wanted to see if any of the worthless-yet-priceless characters redeemed themselves in the end. The answer was no.
July 21, 2010
It's sad to read this four years after Wasserstein's early death. (Apparently the book itself was published posthumously as well.) It's not necessarily moving, but Elements of Style is very funny. In my estimation there's only one character for whom the reader is supposed to care (Dr. Frankie Weissman, with whom the book begins and ends), which has clearly made it difficult for many reviewers here to care about the book as a whole. But if you take this as a skewering of the world of the Upper East Side in the early twenty-first century, then it's pretty great fun. Wasserstein is adept at documenting the ways in which old money is out and new money -- the flashier the better -- is in.
While a number of the reviews at the time compared her to Austen (anyone who writes domestic fiction that is halfway honest about women's lot in life always gets compared to Austen), the more apt comparison is to Wharton, and not just because of the location. This is a book about women and social class and, like the Custom of the Country (my very fave Wharton), it's somewhat preposterous, but no less enjoyable or astute for being so.
While a number of the reviews at the time compared her to Austen (anyone who writes domestic fiction that is halfway honest about women's lot in life always gets compared to Austen), the more apt comparison is to Wharton, and not just because of the location. This is a book about women and social class and, like the Custom of the Country (my very fave Wharton), it's somewhat preposterous, but no less enjoyable or astute for being so.
March 21, 2016
I'm not entirely sure what the author's point was for this book. I guess maybe to show the depravity and shallowness of New York socialites? I'm not sure. It also dealt a lot with uncertainly of life in New York after 9/11. Maybe I should think of this as naturalism? I'll decide someday. This wasn't exactly chick-lit, but it seemed to be a close cousin, and it was entertaining on a long car ride. But I was still confused by many choices the characters made. Two characters randomly began an affair, seemingly without warning since they both came across as fairly happily married. Instead, they seemed to act out of boredom. In fact, that was the motivation for much of the action. I continue to be drawn to these kinds of books for road trips, but I don't think it would have stood up to a print reading.
August 22, 2016
What a mess. Wendy trains the Big Guns on a sitting duck, i.e. the sort of women (the male characters only exist as appendages to their consorts with one exception) who staff the upper echelons of New York City "society", something that has been a pain in the ass to the rest of the country since Mrs. Astor's fabled 400. As if the shallow, narcissistic harpies that Wasserstein drags out aren't overkill enough, she sets them in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but even that doesn't really do it. So for good measure she invents a Starbucks explosion that kills 70, blowing up child ballerinas.. Child ballerinas, people! And still the socialites continue their meaningless lives of excess consumption and hypocritical charity galas. One might almost think they are retreating behind their money! (Large hint there as to what Wasserstein is really doing in this novel).
Wendy's heroine is Dr. Francesca Weissman, who belongs tangentially to this world as a high-priced pediatrician, but who has a foot in Real Life because she donates time to the ethnic/African-American poor, thereby risking professional ostracism from the upper-class girls because their own children might get poor people cooties in the waiting room. But Francesca-Call-Me-Frankie is also a graduate of Spence and Princeton, so, y'know, she is basically smart. And Jewish, with earthy roots in the garment trade.
Wasserstein, like Frankie, was an outsider. In real life, she orbited the kinds of folks she skewers in this play, lived a very comfortable Manhattan life, but, thanks to her gimlet eye, kept her distance. And even though Frankie flirts with the upper classes, she always goes back to those deserving poor. Because they are authentic. Or something. It's hard to tell, since we never actually get a chance to meet any of the poor people because Frankie is too busy panting after the rich bitches.
And bitches they are. There are no real friendships depicted in Elements of Style. By the way, get the title? It is all Style uber alles, although Wasserstein confuses style with brand names, names scattered throughout the book like confetti. Henry James and Edith Wharton, who effortlessly did what Wasserstein tries to pull off here, don't spend a lot of time looking at the name tags on their characters' clothing. Or presumably separate the upper classes from the lower classes because money and good clothes make you shallow. Or something.
But here's the deal. This is a rewritten Great Gatsby. Not a tribute, an actual swipe. Wasserstein cribs the character of Nick Carraway --- that's Frankie. And since it is hard to shake the feeling that Frankie is an avatar for Wendy, Wendy sees herself as Carraway, for those playing the home game. But there is also a Myrtle and a Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Indeed, Wasserstein paraphrases several of Gatsby's best lines, one of them so obviously that it made me stop sprawling in my reading chair and sit up in disbelief.
We don't need The Great Gatsby Lite. I'd like to think that had Wassersein lived, she would have thought better of this novel. Because it is a lot closer to Jackie Collins than Scott Fitzgerald.
Even if you like Wasserstein's other work, and I do, not recommended.
separate the upper from the lower classes
Wendy's heroine is Dr. Francesca Weissman, who belongs tangentially to this world as a high-priced pediatrician, but who has a foot in Real Life because she donates time to the ethnic/African-American poor, thereby risking professional ostracism from the upper-class girls because their own children might get poor people cooties in the waiting room. But Francesca-Call-Me-Frankie is also a graduate of Spence and Princeton, so, y'know, she is basically smart. And Jewish, with earthy roots in the garment trade.
Wasserstein, like Frankie, was an outsider. In real life, she orbited the kinds of folks she skewers in this play, lived a very comfortable Manhattan life, but, thanks to her gimlet eye, kept her distance. And even though Frankie flirts with the upper classes, she always goes back to those deserving poor. Because they are authentic. Or something. It's hard to tell, since we never actually get a chance to meet any of the poor people because Frankie is too busy panting after the rich bitches.
And bitches they are. There are no real friendships depicted in Elements of Style. By the way, get the title? It is all Style uber alles, although Wasserstein confuses style with brand names, names scattered throughout the book like confetti. Henry James and Edith Wharton, who effortlessly did what Wasserstein tries to pull off here, don't spend a lot of time looking at the name tags on their characters' clothing. Or presumably separate the upper classes from the lower classes because money and good clothes make you shallow. Or something.
But here's the deal. This is a rewritten Great Gatsby. Not a tribute, an actual swipe. Wasserstein cribs the character of Nick Carraway --- that's Frankie. And since it is hard to shake the feeling that Frankie is an avatar for Wendy, Wendy sees herself as Carraway, for those playing the home game. But there is also a Myrtle and a Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Indeed, Wasserstein paraphrases several of Gatsby's best lines, one of them so obviously that it made me stop sprawling in my reading chair and sit up in disbelief.
We don't need The Great Gatsby Lite. I'd like to think that had Wassersein lived, she would have thought better of this novel. Because it is a lot closer to Jackie Collins than Scott Fitzgerald.
Even if you like Wasserstein's other work, and I do, not recommended.
separate the upper from the lower classes
May 3, 2014
This book was awful. I'm not even quite sure why I finished it, but it did. It was so dumb, i can't even find anything even remotely intelligent to say about it. It was set in a post 9/11 NYC about this group of fashionistas, men and women. And the reason that I know it was about a post 9/11 society was because they said it EVERY OTHER PAGE!!!! Ugh!Actually, that's not quite accurate. It was almost like this author wrote the novel and then opened the pages and threw her finger down and said, "Here, here I will jot in something about it being post 9/11 and add some obscure comment about how unsafe we feel." It was totally unrealistic and then the ending was simply and utterly ridiculous. Don't waste your time, don't read this book.
March 18, 2013
Clearly written escapism, "Elements of Style" draws you in with well-crafted indulgent, ridiculous, and highly unlikeable characters more obsessed with their Upper East Side social status than anything else. Their lavish lifestyles are intriguing, if not unbelievable, and I was quickly intrigued by each character's personal story.
I would have completely loved this book if not for some completely over-the-top plot points. Yes, rich people also have problems, but plaguing every character with seemingly unrealistic problems seemed to be driving the point a little too hard.
I would have completely loved this book if not for some completely over-the-top plot points. Yes, rich people also have problems, but plaguing every character with seemingly unrealistic problems seemed to be driving the point a little too hard.
September 9, 2015
This is decent chick lit. I'm sure the world expected more of Wendy Wasserstein, but I'm not going to judge her. It was snooty and insightful and entertaining. I liked it for a quick read!
September 3, 2025
yes I can quite imagine this if the life of an UES pediatrician
March 28, 2025
Ok you know what - 3/4 was pretty bad and just constant name dropping of UES stuff (12-yr old rachel would’ve eaten that up) but then the last quarter of the book got pretty good and emotional - depth and humanity was shown in the characters and I think Wendy did an excellent job at telling the ending of each character’s story!
June 22, 2012
Very funny book about shallow members of New York society. Eventually some of the shallow characters get insights into their lives--and those are also quite shallow. The problem with the book is that shallow characters get predictable after awhile. I think I might have been fascinated by this if it were my introduction to New York socialites, but this has been done before.
Wasserstein is better known for her plays--this is her first novel. She is best known for depicting middle-aged women who suffer from self-doubt. The women in the story were all in their early 40s, mostly reed thin, obsessed with shopping, spa treatments, getting their kids into the "right schools," being invited to the best dinner parties, blah blah. Also, they wanted to hang onto their rich husbands. Independence could be gained by having personal wealth, but it didn't guarantee confidence. Instead the women were neurotic and narcissistic--which isn't much of a revelation.
The fear and sadness one year after 9/11 is well drawn. Everyone's emotions were raw, the security alerts were always going to orange and even red, people kept prescriptions for Cipro onhand in case they were exposed to anthrax. But most of these characters didn't help during the disaster--they were just concerned with getting out of town. They did hold charity events to raise money afterward, of course.
There is a single, 40sh, Jewish pediatrician who is drawn into the elite social circle for a brief time who has more depth to her character, but her character arc is predictable--when you hang out with shallow people, and you're not one of them (you're Jewish, you're not rich, you're too serious about life), you'll eventually get hurt.
I was sorry to learn that the author died, because I think she would have grown over time.
Wasserstein is better known for her plays--this is her first novel. She is best known for depicting middle-aged women who suffer from self-doubt. The women in the story were all in their early 40s, mostly reed thin, obsessed with shopping, spa treatments, getting their kids into the "right schools," being invited to the best dinner parties, blah blah. Also, they wanted to hang onto their rich husbands. Independence could be gained by having personal wealth, but it didn't guarantee confidence. Instead the women were neurotic and narcissistic--which isn't much of a revelation.
The fear and sadness one year after 9/11 is well drawn. Everyone's emotions were raw, the security alerts were always going to orange and even red, people kept prescriptions for Cipro onhand in case they were exposed to anthrax. But most of these characters didn't help during the disaster--they were just concerned with getting out of town. They did hold charity events to raise money afterward, of course.
There is a single, 40sh, Jewish pediatrician who is drawn into the elite social circle for a brief time who has more depth to her character, but her character arc is predictable--when you hang out with shallow people, and you're not one of them (you're Jewish, you're not rich, you're too serious about life), you'll eventually get hurt.
I was sorry to learn that the author died, because I think she would have grown over time.
October 14, 2013
I went into this expecting a delightful and undemanding girlie read, and I got it, but this is not a standard guilty pleasure lady book, like that one I read a few months ago about the ladies in hollywood and their divorces - I've forgotten the name but I think I reviewed it. This is the first thing I've read by Wendy Wasserstein, and I've learned just a little bit about her from other reviewers, who on the whole found this book to be kind of superficial and non-awesome. Contrarily, I have found myself rather affected by this story. The setting is shiney and glitzy early aughts nyc, but the relationships, moreso than the individual characters, were very well drawn and spoke a lot of truth about the complicated, unique nature of all love relationships.
Even though we are not all socialites, I wonder if some of us are more like these 'ladies who lunch' than we would have been fifteen years ago, because of social media. The obsession with appearance and reputation and social value would have seemed very trite and hard to relate to me in an earlier time, I think, but I kept finding myself relating to these characters and their flashy society. Of course my flashy society takes place primarily on Facebook, but still.
This is the best book of its color I have read in recent memory. Highly recommended for social novel lovers, girlie readers, and satc fans, insomuch as those things every appear in isolation :-).
love
ann
Even though we are not all socialites, I wonder if some of us are more like these 'ladies who lunch' than we would have been fifteen years ago, because of social media. The obsession with appearance and reputation and social value would have seemed very trite and hard to relate to me in an earlier time, I think, but I kept finding myself relating to these characters and their flashy society. Of course my flashy society takes place primarily on Facebook, but still.
This is the best book of its color I have read in recent memory. Highly recommended for social novel lovers, girlie readers, and satc fans, insomuch as those things every appear in isolation :-).
love
ann
February 15, 2008
First off, there will be spoilers so if you want to read this book and don't like to know anything before you read it (like me) then don't read on!
What was this? I love Wendy Wasserstein as a playwright. I couldn't wait to read this book! I thought that it would be a witty satire on New York's "finest" (not the firefighters, the Upper East Siders) after 9/11. I was sorely mistaken.
The first few chapters are delightful and engaging, but soon, you long for the book to go somewhere... 307 pages later you shut the book realizing that it never did!
The political agenda being pushed was nauseating. I daresay it bordered on propaganda!
I liked not one character in this entire book- not one. At the beginning I thought that this was so that Ms Wasserstein would make a point later... SHE NEVER DID.
You can tell Wendy was an excellent playwright from the vivid descriptions of scene. It was written very visually.
I hate to say it, but this book's critical acclaim comes only from Ms Wasserstein's previous success as a playwright and her untimely death. Had she lived she would have discovered that she most certainly wasn't a novelist and should have spent her time writing what she is truly genious at- plays.
What was this? I love Wendy Wasserstein as a playwright. I couldn't wait to read this book! I thought that it would be a witty satire on New York's "finest" (not the firefighters, the Upper East Siders) after 9/11. I was sorely mistaken.
The first few chapters are delightful and engaging, but soon, you long for the book to go somewhere... 307 pages later you shut the book realizing that it never did!
The political agenda being pushed was nauseating. I daresay it bordered on propaganda!
I liked not one character in this entire book- not one. At the beginning I thought that this was so that Ms Wasserstein would make a point later... SHE NEVER DID.
You can tell Wendy was an excellent playwright from the vivid descriptions of scene. It was written very visually.
I hate to say it, but this book's critical acclaim comes only from Ms Wasserstein's previous success as a playwright and her untimely death. Had she lived she would have discovered that she most certainly wasn't a novelist and should have spent her time writing what she is truly genious at- plays.
Read
February 5, 2009Critics felt traitorous calling Wendy Wasserstein's debut novel, published so soon after her death, a bit of a disappointment, but many agreed that what works so well on stage (the Pulitzer Prize? and Tony Award?winning play The Heidi Chronicles) does not translate well to prose. Some critics thought the novel possessed the verve and "charmingly neurotic" heroine (USA Today)__a Wendy stand-in__of her best-known work and praised Wasserstein's keen eye for social satire. Others called Elements of Style a so-so effort, filled with clich_
May 21, 2016
This is the first Wendy Wasserstein I've read and I have to admit that I really enjoyed it. Yet another audiobook where I wish I had read the book, I thought that Wasserstein was so wonderfully, delicately, and hysteriously scathing in this book.... Thoroughly enjoyed most of it and really thought it was an interesting portrait of what happens when people who are VERY used to being in control of their lives suddenly come upon something they can't control.
Also, the first fiction I've read that really tackles New York's reaction to September 11.
I will definitely be checking out some of her plays.
Also, the first fiction I've read that really tackles New York's reaction to September 11.
I will definitely be checking out some of her plays.
August 26, 2018
Every now and then I read a book and then wonder why on earth I did such a thing. Perhaps such books are palate cleansers but they leave a kind of sticky residue. I did not understand any of these characters, especially what Samantha saw in Barry. Labelled this humour and satire because otherwise it is not anything at all. Sorry, poor dead author. I can only assume you did not really have the chance to finish this.
December 13, 2008
I think the characters were all meant to be despised, but I'm still not sure that's what the author wanted to have happen. Maybe she wanted them to seem real by all of their flaws, but they just came off as selfish, snobby, and immoral. I kept waiting for a redeeming factor and it never really came.
December 30, 2019
Loved it! Light and delightful at first, but Wasserstein's insights into human nature are quietly observed. I deeply admire her ability to show multiple aspects of her characters, so that in varying turns I felt compelled, repulsed, and compassionate for the same character.
September 4, 2007
I like to read these kind of "non-thinking" books every once in a while, but this one was just plain silly - characters were over-the-top and the story was really predictable.
October 13, 2007
It was a little lame, but I still liked it. I was expecting more from Wendy, but the poor thing is no longer with us, so ....
July 13, 2017
Yarda yada ya. Blah blah blah... DNF. Went no where fast....
October 30, 2017
I forgot how crazy we went after 9/11. We need more Wassersteins. Many didn't like the characters but, yes, such as in life a-holes often come out of things unscathed and life isn't fair.
September 2, 2024
Now I know why Wasserstein is known as a playwright not a novelist.
October 9, 2021
There is no plot here, just a cast of the outrageously rich doing outrageously rich people things. I might have given it three stars if . And if you're going to name your mediocre fiction novel after Strunk and White's book, at least make an effort to include it as more than a childhood prop of a minor character. But I guess when you read the first chapter of a book and put it down for three entire weeks without caring about it, you probably shouldn't finish that book in the first place.
November 13, 2018
Library describes this as “A satirical look at the lives of the New York City socialites shortly after 9/11.” I do not think the satire resonates as clearly as some critics found it. I was reminded of Bonfire of the Vanities – this book shows that the “social x-rays” didn’t go away after the excesses of the 1980’s. Though this book was fairly enjoyable, I cannot say that I will highly recommend it – something seems to be missing.
September 6, 2021
Total escape reading about lifestyles of the rich and ridiculous.
Socialites in Manhattan vie to outdo each other in insipid fashion. How in the hell did “socialite” ever get to become a real thing anyway?
Few of the characters are very likable and almost nobody is better off from the beginning of the story to the end. The author attempted to add a little gravity to the very fluffy storylines but, alas, not very successfully.
Socialites in Manhattan vie to outdo each other in insipid fashion. How in the hell did “socialite” ever get to become a real thing anyway?
Few of the characters are very likable and almost nobody is better off from the beginning of the story to the end. The author attempted to add a little gravity to the very fluffy storylines but, alas, not very successfully.
February 11, 2021
This was fun! This was an audiobook. I enjoyed it. Very much about the Who’s who, in this part of The City. Who’s married to whom, who they know, what they do all day and where their kids go to school.
Honestly, I laughed out loud a few times. It did have mention of 911, and how “New Yorkers” in this group of people were affected. Overall, it was fun, good read.
✨Good Beach read! 👍🏻
Honestly, I laughed out loud a few times. It did have mention of 911, and how “New Yorkers” in this group of people were affected. Overall, it was fun, good read.
✨Good Beach read! 👍🏻
November 13, 2021
Comedy of manners set among asshole socialites in late 2001 New York City. Loved some of the biting satire, but it nearly develops heart towards the end and then shies away. I suppose "awful rich people stay awful" is a realistic turn of events, but it felt a bit like the author lost her nerve. Whether that's by starting to make characters learn or not letting them complete that, I'm not sure.
May 19, 2020
Mix Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives, and the Real Housewives of (select a city), and you have this book. Wealthy entitled people doing what wealthy entitled people do... Whatever they want because money solves most people's problems right? Entertaining, but not particularly significant.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 264 reviews