Maggie Darling: A Modern Romance

Very funny and very true. You should buy it. Buy it at your local, independent bookstore.

Martha Stewart is an easy target, but Kunstler's hilarious send-up portrays a character whose compulsions and affectations are as charming as they are funny. Maggie Darling, the quintessential Connecticut celebrity hostess, parades her prodigious efficiency from the first page as she surveys her domain, in splendid readiness for "The Christmas Feast for Two Hundred."This breathlessly detailed perfection, capped by the arrival of the first glittering guests and Maggie's ritual panic attack, captures Maggie's life at its peak. But all that is about to change.In the midst of her party, Maggie catches her husband of 26 years in flagrant infidelity and casts him out that very night. It might seem that life could only improve with the dissolute roué banished from her life, but, instead, life begins to unravel. Maggie succumbs to several unsuitable entanglements; her attempt to rescue an old friend backfires; friends and family members become involved in shady activities and worse; crime grows rampant, and the world itself seems to be crumbling around her.But rather than give in to encroaching despair, Maggie rouses herself to cook, or at least make a list, thereby fending off chaos for another day. Though Kunstler ("The Geography of Nowhere," "The Halloween Ball") grants Maggie plenty of human frailties, meanness is not among them and neither is snobbishness, despite her exacting, stylish, rich-gal standards. She is delightful and Kunstler's writing has a stylish, precise archness and a madcap energy that suit his heroine right down to the over-the-top ending. Kunstler's first novel in 10 years is a winner.

I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. Kunstler's ability to capture the reader's attention is marvelous. He's funny, persuasive and intellegent in his writing. He throws us a little political curve ball here and there, while fully involving us in the seemingly frivolous lives of his characters. I enjoyed meeting Maggie Darling and being thrust into her life. Nicely done, Kunstler. In testimony to the way truly good books engage us, you stole me away for the better part of the week!

America as we know it (and we do know it) is going to hell in a handbasket, but if Maggie Darling has anything to do with it it'll be a Carolina sweetgrass basket, thoughtfully packed with "a fat wedge of buttery St. Andre, a tin of foie gras, boxes of oat and water biscuits" and a "really splendid 1988 Criots-Batard-Montrachet." This is a delightful and fast-paced romp redolent of Tom Wolfe and P.G. Wodehouse. I was already a fan of James Howard Kunstler's work, especially two of his non-fiction books, The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere (both of which, by the way, should be required reading for every American). If you've read those, or his acerbic essays on the sorry state of civilization, you may be surprised at the generous tone and likable heroine of this new novel, not to mention a number of extremely funny scenes which I hope to see in a major motion picture someday soon. (Hello, Jonathan Demme?)It's easy to imagine this as a movie, because Kunstler's writing is so vivid and detailed that everything and everyone passing through Maggie's impeccable Connecticut country kitchen and somewhat (!) messier personal life can be visualized in living color. You'll devour this book like one of Maggie's sumptuous feasts, feeling pampered and satisfied afterwards. Still, you may suffer a mild but nagging hangover -- that the fictional whacked-out world falling in ruins around her is not only plausible, but true.