| Her Infinite Variety Contributor(s): Auchincloss, Louis (Author) |
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ISBN: 0618224882 ISBN-13: 9780618224883 Publisher: Harper Perennial OUR PRICE: $16.14 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 2002 Annotation: HER INFINITE VARIETY spins the charmingly wicked tale of Clara Hoyt, perhaps one of the most colorful characters in the Auchincloss oeuvre. Employing uncommon savvy and elan, she charts a wildly entertaining course to the inner sanctum of New York's aristocracy and to the boardrooms of the publishing world. With characteristic urbanity and wit, Auchincloss offers a larger comment on what some women did to get ahead in the middle of the twentieth century. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Women - Fiction | Romance - Historical - 20th Century |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 99047302 |
| Physical Information: 0.58" H x 5.21" W x 8.79" (0.67 lbs) 240 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: From one of America's greatest men of letters, our sublime master of manners, comes his novel, Her Infinite Variety. Louis Auchincloss has been called "our most astute observer of moral paradox among the affluent" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), and his fiction described as that which "has always examined what makes life worth living" (Washington Post Book World). Now he brings us the rollicking tale of an unforgettable woman of mid-twentieth century America: the devilish, forever plotting, yet wholly beguiling Clara Hoyt. A romantic early in life, Clara gets engaged--much to her mother's horror--to the lackluster Bobbie Lester. Soon after her Vassar graduation, however, Clara sees the error of her ways, spurns Bobbie, and slyly enthralls the well-bred and fabulously wealthy Trevor Hoyt, the first of her husbands. Soon she lands a job at a tony magazine, and so begins her wildly entertaining course to the inner sanctum of New York's aristocracy and into the boardrooms of the publishing world. In a world where women still had to wield the weapons of allure and charm, above all else, to secure positions of power, Clara, one of the last of her kind, succeeds marvelously. Auchincloss gives us, in Clara, an irresistible Cleopatra, lovely, wily, and mercurial. As Shakespeare wrote of that feminine creation, "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety." |
Contributor Bio(s): Auchincloss, Louis: - Louis Auchincloss was honored in the year 2000 as a "Living Landmark" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. During his long career he wrote more than sixty books, including the story collection Manhattan Monologues and the novel The Rector of Justin. The former president of the Academy of Arts and Letters, he resided in New York City until his death in January 2010. |