Synopses & Reviews
In the world of Kate Taylor, heroine of Rules for Saying Goodbye, pleasure and melancholy are close neighbors--like the summer hats and lobster boilers squashed together in the tiny closet of her Manhattan apartment. In this hilarious, bittersweet story, we follow young Kate from her girlhood in Fresno California, through a career at a chilly New England prep school, and on to life in Manhattan, where she finds a sometimes dissipated, sometimes glamorous life of fourteen-dollar cocktails, empty cupboards, and extravagantly unsuitable men.
In this witty and affecting debut, the real-life Katherine Taylor chronicles the moment when you stop waiting for things to happen, and go in search of them yourself. Katherine Taylor has won a Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares. Much like her fictional alter ego, she has burned bridges in London, Rome, and Brussels, but now lives in Los Angeles. "Kath is curious," observes her younger brother, Ethan, not without anxiety. She is thirteen; already everyone can see shes got her eye on bigger things than provincial Fresno can offer. Years in the glamorous chill of an East Coast prep school will introduce her to a razor-sharp sense of social distinction, cocaine "so good its pink," and an indispensable best friendall that she needs to prepare for life in Manhattan. There will be fourteen-dollar cocktails but no money for groceries; unsuitable men of enormous charm, and unsuitable jobs of no charm at all; and a wistful yearning for a transformation from someone of promise into someone of genius.
In this deliciously witty and affecting debut novel, fiction winks at real life: Katherine Taylor is its muddled heroine, and also its author. Written in the tradition of Curtis Sittenfeld and Melissa Bank, with the gorgeous hues of a pile of Gatsbys shirts, Rules for Saying Goodbye is a bittersweet yet comic coming-of-age tale that has an unerring feel for the delights and malaises of a generation.
Katherine Taylor certainly created some noise before the publication of her first novel, Rules for Saying Goodbye. She picked a feud with writer Benjamin Kunkel, whose novel Indecision, she said, was ridiculously simple and would have been branded chick lit if it had been written by a woman. Then, by way of pointing out whats she up against, Taylor was quoted as saying, Its hard, when youre blond and attractive and you live in Los Angeles and youve written a book about young women in New York, not to be called chick lit. The fact is, Taylor is attractive and Rules for Saying Goodbye is a treat. Chick lit or coming-of-age? You be the judge.”Sherryl Connelly, Daily News
Cancel your date, pour a martini and turn off your phone because this book will make you feel like youve just sat down with a woman who is sharing her life storyand trust us, youll want to listen. Brimming with blunt words and raw emotion, the book follows Kate Taylor (author Katherine Taylors fictional alter ego) through an elite cocaine-drenched prep school, road trips with her often depressed mother, bartending in Manhattan and repeated lost loves.”The Atlantan
Debut novelist Katherine Taylor, wholl give you the evil eye if you dare call her work chick lit, has already been compared to Dorothy Parker, with whom she shares a talent for scathing wit and chillingly honest prose. Rules for Saying Goodbye, a coming-of-age novel that pulls no punches, revolves around the misadventures of heroine Katherine Taylor, who shares more than just a name with her creator. Both Katherines grew up in California, spent years at a posh prep school and ended up bartending in Manhattan. But unlike her fictional alter ego, the author transformed her hilarious and heartbreaking experiences into a novel you wont soon forget.”Zink
Achieves a directness and intimacy few novels can match. A beautifully observed and poignant book.”T.C. Boyle
"Katherine Taylor's debut novel is . . . wry, funny, heartfelt, and written with grace. I thought boys had the patent on cruelty, but wow, girls can be rough on each other! And yet it's a testament to Taylor's talent that this novel never loses sight of the complexity, the humanity, at the heart of these characters. The story isn't always pretty, but it's so damn good."Victor LaValle, author of The Ecstatic and Slapboxing with Jesus
"This story tumbles through years of a life, careening through cities, through decadent days and nights, through ranks of soulful and magnetic characters. Taylor can wink like Dorothy Parker, and move through worlds like Christopher Isherwood. After you read the last page, your shirt-cuffs will be stained with wine and perfumed with cigarette smoke, and you will be giddy and exhausted from this long, tender, bittersweet, intimate, lovely party."Jardine Libaire, author of Here Kitty Kitty
"For a fleeting and innocent period in a certain kind of girl's life, cocktails and cigarettes are just an excuse to talk to each other. Rules for Saying Goodbye elegantly describes how this equation reversesthe talking becomes the excuse for the cocktails and cigarettes. In her smart and funny novel, Katherine Taylor renders with unusual precision both the wistfulness and the wit in female friendships."Dana Spiotta, National Book Award-nominated author of Eat the Document
"Katherine Taylor's debut features a narrator named Katherine Taylor, whose rebellious mother sends her from Fresno to Manhattan's fictional Claver prep at age 13. The madcap, fast-forward shenanigans that follow read like Auntie Mame à la A.M. Homes. Rich Claver friend Page gets pregnant and develops a coke habit. Katherine gets a Columbia M.F.A. but lacks drive, tending bar at an exclusive hotspot while trying not to deal with her abrasive mom. Katherine's brother, Ethan, a gay actor, rooms with her in her cheap uptown digs until he becomes 'the face of Diet Coke.' There's ambivalent romance that involves a move to London. Claver friend Clarissa gets cancer as she turns 30. When a nutty neighbor threatens to kill Katherine, police advise vacating, but 'giving up a rent-controlled apartment to save your life is as ridiculous as living in Queens.' While a lot of what Katherine does is familiar, Taylor is a superb satirist, eviscerating everyone in her Katherine's path . . . Taylor manages to make worn New York yarns feel fresh again."Publishers Weekly
Review
"A delightful amuse-esprit--a delicious light morsel of a story that tantalizes and whets the appetite for more."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Bursts of brilliant dialogue and description illuminate many already bright scenes from California to Massachusetts to Rome, from teenage through 20-something. Taylor's story moves far and fast and is engaging and entertaining at every point."--The Boston Globe
"A finely crafted debut novel."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Rules for Saying Goodbye is a treat. . . . Reminiscent of Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Now there are two savvy, witty novels about--we'll go ahead and say it--young women coming of age. You got a problem with that?"--The Daily News (New York)
"A delightful debut."--Vogue
"Taylor is not only a natural storyteller but a fabulously bitchy wit. Reading her feels like a marathon gossip with one's cleverest, loveliest, and oldest friend."--The Times (London)
Synopsis
Kath is curious, observes her younger brother, Ethan, not without anxiety. She is thirteen; already everyone can see she's got her eye on bigger things than provincial Fresno can offer. Years in the glamorous chill of an East Coast prep school will introduce her to a razor-sharp sense of social distinction, cocaine so good it's pink, and an indispensable best friend-- all that she needs to prepare for life in Manhattan. There will be fourteen-dollar cocktails but no money for groceries; unsuitable men of enormous charm, and unsuitable jobs of no charm at all; and a wistful yearning for a transformation from someone of promise into someone of genius.
In this deliciously witty and affecting debut novel, fiction winks at real life: Katherine Taylor is its muddled heroine, and also its author. Written in the tradition of Curtis Sittenfeld and Melissa Bank, with the gorgeous hues of a pile of Gatsby's shirts, Rules for Saying Goodbye is a bittersweet yet comic coming-of-age tale that has an unerring feel for the delights and malaises of a generation.
Synopsis
In the world of Kate Taylor, heroine of Rules for Saying Goodbye, pleasure and melancholy are close neighbors--like the summer hats and lobster boilers squashed together in the tiny closet of her Manhattan apartment. In this hilarious, bittersweet story, we follow young Kate from her girlhood in Fresno California, through a career at a chilly New England prep school, and on to life in Manhattan, where she finds a sometimes dissipated, sometimes glamorous life of fourteen-dollar cocktails, empty cupboards, and extravagantly unsuitable men.
In this witty and affecting debut, the real-life Katherine Taylor chronicles the moment when you stop waiting for things to happen, and go in search of them yourself.
About the Author
KATHERINE TAYLOR has won a Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares. She now lives in Los Angeles.
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
1. How much were you affected by the fact that the authors name is the same as the narrators? Does the line between fact and fiction, memoir and novel, matter very much?
2. What is at the root of Elizabeths fear regarding Fresno and life in general? What unfulfilled dreams is she working through by sending Kate away? How does Kates concept of the future compare to her mothers dream for her? Did your parents try to foist any odd visions of fulfillment on you?
3. What distinctions separate a girls coming-of-age story from a boys? Who are Kates greatest role models in shaping her identity as a woman? In what ways do her parents treat sons and daughters differently?
4. As a prep school, what did Claver promise to prepare its graduates to do? For Kate, what were the best and worst aspects of life there? Was she prepared for the world after she completed high school?
5. Page and Clarissa were raised in very different households. How much influence did their families have over their lives? Did the girls make it safely to adulthood because of or despite the way they were raised? Who were the most memorable parents you encountered among your friends when you were growing up?
6. How would you characterize Kates Claver friendships? What did it take to gain and keep friends there? Was her circle similar to yours, in terms of loyalty, disobedience, or other factors?
7. Doris feels safe in hospitals, surrounded by caretakers who are the opposite of sadistic Aunt Lou. How was Kate affected by the presence of Doris and Lou in her family? What harm existed in both Kates and Doriss households?
8. Discuss the cross-country road trip Kate and her mother took. What new perspectives did Kate gain about Elizabeth, now that Kate had reached adulthood? How would you and your mother have gotten along on a trip like this one?
9. Is having wealthy parents a boon or a curse in Kates life?
10. How does Kates existence with Ethan in New York compare to her days on the West Coast? How does her life in Europe compare to her time in the United States? Where does Kate feel the least homesick?
11. At the end of chapter eleven, Kate encounters an aging Mrs. Burns, who is gleefully watching Jonas and Ethan roller-skate. What liberating lessons had Mrs. Burns taught her more than a decade ago?
12. In what way was climbing Le Dom with Henry and Oliver similar to the other challenges Kate faced—in dating, coping with her mother, keeping a job?
13. Chapter fourteen gives the novel its title. How could Kates rules have improved some of your departures? Who has said goodbye to her at various points in her life, and vice versa?
14. What aspects of Kate are represented in the novels four parts? What is the effect of the way the author blends humorous and wrenching moments in her storytelling?
15. In the closing scenes of chapter nineteen, Delia leaves the city after "she had made us believe, for a little while, that we had been missing something." How did Delia develop such a hold over her friends? Did you envy any aspects of her personality or her life?
16. At the summer house in Michigan, Clarissa is both recovering from a frightening illness and getting used to the prospect of motherhood. How did your impressions of her shift from the beginning of the novel to this point?
17. "I no longer needed to be reminded that a lot of girls would have stayed," the author writes in the novels final line. Would you have stayed with Lucas?