Synopses & Reviews
A searing black comedy about nannies and parents, publishing and prejudice, and the not-so-gentle art of ambition.
The new nanny is perfect. A natural with children, a whiz in the kitchen, and a talented painter, the only thing Miss Washington can't seem to do is make a mistake. But when Stuart Cross loses his editing job and decides to write the great American novel, the nanny's excellence quickly becomes a sore spot.
Stuart, paralyzed by writer's block, envies her impending artistic success; his wife Andie doesn't trust her and wishes she could stay home with their daughters; and on top of that, even a mention of the nanny's old boyfriend, ex-con Toussaint, makes the local police uneasy. The heightening jealousy and resentment that the parents feel toward their surrogate sets into motion a chain of unexpected events and surprising reversals that will end, less than a week later, in a suspected kidnapping, a half-million-dollar book deal, and the unpleasant question of just who, exactly, the guilty party is.
Review
"Although Cheever's parody of suburbia ('Tara-on-Hudson') and publishing ('Bathos Literary Agency') can be a tad heavy-handed, this is an immensely funny and sharp account of the vanity of human wishes." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Far too few people know that Benjamin Cheever is America's best comic novelist. He can make a reader laugh out loud, but his purposes are serious, and his humor, like Waugh's, derives from an awareness of the darker tendencies of human nature. The Good Nanny is about self-absorbed people who regard themselves as virtuous and who do terrible things without ever even faintly perceiving their responsibility then forgive themselves at the drop of a hat." Alec Wilkinson, author of My Mentor and Mr. Apology and Other Essays
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of Selling Ben Cheever comes a searing black comedy about nannies and parents, publishing and prejudice, and the not-so-gentle art of ambition.
Synopsis
The Cross family's new nanny is perfect. A natural with children, a whiz in the kitchen, and a gifted painter, the only thing Miss Washington can't seem to do is make a mistake. But thanks to Stuart Cross's artistic ambitions, his wife Andie's mounting paranoia, and the nanny's smitten ex-boyfriend, what should be domestic bliss quickly turns into an outrageous disaster.
About the Author
Benjamin Cheever has been a reporter for daily newspapers and an editor at
Reader's Digest. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir
Selling Ben Cheever and the novels
The Plagiarist,
The Partisan, and
Famous After Death, and the editor of
The Letters of John Cheever. He has taught at Bennington College and The New School for Social Research.