Synopses & Reviews
"This novel is book club gold. . . . The Cosmopolitans is a great group read—weighty dilemmas, unforgettable characters, and a roller-coaster plot!"—Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow
A modern retelling of Balzac's classic Cousin Bette by one of America's most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their familied, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to "make it." Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read. The truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed.
Sarah Schulman, a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, professor, and journalist, has published seventeen books. Her awards include a Guggenheim, Fulbright in Judaic Studies, two American Library Association Book Awards (fiction and nonfiction), and the Kessler Prize for Sustained Contribution to LGBT Studies. She is distinguished professor of the humanities at CUNY, a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine.
Synopsis
Two unlikely friends, cast out of their own families, search for understanding in 1950s Bohemian New York City.
Synopsis
A modern retelling of Balzac's classic Cousin Bette by one of America's most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their familied, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to "make it." Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read. The truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed.
Synopsis
A "captivating, perceptive, and empathic novel of New York" told with "panache and mischievous ebullience" (Booklist, starred review).
In this retelling of Balzac's Parisian classic Cousin Bette, Sarah Shulman spins her revenge story in Mad Men-era New York City. Bette, a lonely spinster, has worked as a secretary at an ad agency for thirty years. Her only real friend is her apartment neighbor Earl, a black, gay actor with a miserable job in a meatpacking plant. Shamed and disowned by their families, both find refuge in New York and in their friendship.
Everything changes when Hortense, Bette's wealthy niece from Ohio, moves to the city to pursue her own acting career. Her arrival reminds Bette of her scandalous past and the estranged Midwestern family she left behind. When Hortense's calculating ambitions cause a rift between Bette and Earl, Bette uses her connections in the television ad world to destroy those who have wronged her.
Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan in the days before the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements, The Cosmopolitans "balance s] the hopes of an entire era on the backs of a fragile relationship. . . . Jarring and beautiful, this is a modern classic" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
About the Author
Sarah Schulman's love of New York is evident in The Cosmopolitans, her 9th novel and 16th book. Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at CUNY, her honors and awards include a Guggenheim in Playwriting and a Fulbright in Judaic Studies. A well known literary chronicler of the marginalized and subcultural, Sarah's fiction has focused on queer urban life for thirty years. Her nonfiction includes The Gentrification of The Mind, a memoir of the homogenization of her city in the wake of the AIDS crisis. Her plays and films have been seen at Playwrights Horizons, The Berlin Film Festival and The Museum of Modern Art. An AIDS historian, Sarah is co-founder of the ACT UP Oral History Project. She is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and is faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at the College of Staten Island.