The Recessionistas
- eBook
- Paperback
- Audiobook
- Hardcover
- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
It's the day after Labor Day, 2008, and the elite universe of New York's Upper East Side is about to unravel along with the economy. Socialite Grigsby Somerset is barely aware of her changing world and has no idea her investment banker husband, Blake, is about to enter into a devil's bargain with hedge fund owner John Cutter.
As autumn unfolds, Grigsby's fairytale life starts to unwind. Street-smart Renee Parker has been hired as John's executive assistant and is convinced that something is amiss with her new boss. Renee enlists her friend Sasha Silver, CEO of Silver Partners, to help her decipher what is happening. They soon discover that John is nearly ruined, except for the assets he is hiding in the Cayman Islands from his wife, Mimi, and has concocted with Blake a scheme to redeem himself. This tale of expulsion from a modern-day Garden of Eden captures what happens when economic decline spells ruin for Manhattan's pampered elite.
Release date: July 22, 2010
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 320
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Author updates
The Recessionistas
Alexandra Lebenthal
—Cosmopolitan
“Hilarious… provides a glimpse into the lives of the ladies who lunch.”
—New York Post
“A tightly plotted mystery narrated by a cast of wives, assistants, and mistresses—but it’s packed with information… The book
is centered on real-life events, from the firesale of Bear Stearns to the Bergdorf Goodman–Manolo Blahnik lunch event that
one character—the spendthrift wife of a Lehman bond salesman—attends on the day of that firm’s collapse.”
—New York Magazine
“Timely, trendy, and sassy. Enjoy the book and don’t be surprised if a film version of it follows in the near future.”
—Associated Content
“A read that you can’t put down… it’s extraordinary… No one knows better than Alexandra what happened to the city when the
markets started falling apart… every character I met in this book I felt I knew, every single one of them.”
—Joan Hamburg, The Joan Hamburg Show, WOR Radio (NY)
“Gossip Girl with grown-ups!”
—Star Magazine
“Fun and sassy… delivers satisfying poetic justice in its depiction of the hubris and sense of entitlement that led to the
economic downfall of many wealthy New Yorkers.”
—Library Journal
“Fabulous… humorous.”
—Parker Ladd, Palm Beach Daily News
“A romp of a book. It is fun and funny, devilish and decadent, wry and witty. It is also a razor-edged portrait of that sui generis creature known as the Manhattan Upper East Sider, oh so painfully learning that life is not always a billion-dollar hedge
fund.”
—Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and contributing editor, Vanity Fair
“Told in the fashion of good, solid gossip… a yes yes to a reader who is curious to know ‘what’ it/they was/were like.”
—NewYorkSocialDiary.com
“No one but Alexandra Lebenthal—part financial wizardess, part keen social observer—could write this unflinching portrait
of New York’s neo-gilded age, pre- and post–Wall Street apocalypse.”
—Jill Kargman, author of The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund
“A fabulous read.”
—Complete Woman
“Lebenthal’s book is about a world I know well and she knows better: very rich people in Manhattan and the Hamptons… a book
Balzac would have enjoyed.”
—Jesse Kornbluth, HuffingtonPost.com
“As only she could do so well—given her platinum pedigree and Wall Street cred—Alexandra Lebenthal has written a smart, sassy
novel that peers into a world of wealth and privilege turned on its crazy head. This is a dishy, divine first novel.”
—William Cohan, New York Times bestselling author of House of Cards
“A good, dishy book… rich detailing… like a Gossip Girl for grown-ups… But readers be warned, this isn’t just a name-dropping, more-fabulous-than-thou fluff read, Lebenthal also
spins quite a good financial tale as well. For every fashion name dropped, there’s a financial one too… It’s clear that Lebenthal
knows her subject matter intimately.”
—Luxist.com
“A rollicking debut by an author who clearly knows the secrets of the boom—and the bust.”
—Mark Seal, contributing editor, Vanity Fair
There were a tremendous number of people who helped me in the process of writing this book and I owe them all heartfelt thanks
for their assistance.
First and foremost, my agent Richard Curtis, who contacted me several years ago and asked if I’d like to write a book. After
a few years I said yes. Richard’s faith in me, and as important, his faith in my characters, helped this story take shape
and come alive.
It is is difficult to publish without a publisher and a book certainly won’t be nearly as good without an editor to guide
it, so to everyone at Grand Central Publishing, I am deeply grateful for all the tremendous enthusiasm shown The Recessionistas from day one. Above all, deepest of thanks to my editor, Karen Kosztolnyik, who loved my ideas from the start, giving me
gentle yet firm guidance throughout the process.
There were many people who I relied on for information about the various worlds I wrote about, so in no particular order but
with the same level of appreciation, great thanks are due for filling in the blanks that have made this story that much better:
Lydia Fenet, “Aunt Mary’s nephew,” Doug Millett, Michelle Smith, Frederick Anderson, Somers Farkas, Sheila Parham, Odette
Cabrera, Bruce Pask, Judy Poller, Roger “Raj” Meltzer, Allison Aston, Jessica Stark, Howard Read, Lisa Podos, Richelle Grant,
Sue Conroy Frith, Jon and Andrew Tisch, Rae Bianco, Jeff Hirsh, Gillian Miniter, Charlie Ayres, and Matt Moneypenney. A special
note of thanks to Dr. R. H. Rees Pritchett, Dr. Patricia Kavanagh, Dr. Barry Stein, and Dr. John Golfinos for their medical knowledge, which wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear. Thank goodness this is fiction.
Thanks also to my cousin Buzz Bissinger for a few insights into the publishing world, which I knew so little about.
I give very special and heartfelt thanks to David Patrick Columbia, who showed me that I had a voice, silent all those years,
but waiting to come out. He encouraged it and gave it life on www.NewYorkSocialDiary.com. I will be ever grateful to him for his support and will continue to be in awe of his writing and profound social observations.
Special appreciation to my family: my sister, Claudia, my brother, Jimmy, and of course, my inimitable, creative, supportive
(and great writer himself) dad, Jim.
Thank you to my children, Ben, Charlotte, and Ellie, who embody only the best of the Silver children, well, most of the time.
I love you dearly. Thank you for your ideas and encouragement throughout.
And especially, and above all, to my husband and love of my life, Jay Diamond. Without your support, suggestions, and editing
assistance, these pages would all be blank.
The Tuesday after Labor Day in New York City is the definitive sign that summer is over. In certain neighborhoods, and frankly
nowhere more so than the Upper East Side of Manhattan, streets that only the week before had been veritable ghost towns suddenly
are full of life with Razor scooters, towheaded children, shrieking teenagers who haven’t seen one another all summer… and
above all, the mothers. These are women of a certain social and economic status who somehow manage to take up most of the
already narrow walking area on Madison Avenue. As they get caught up in conversation, good luck to anyone on the street needing
to get around them, for in some bizarre showing of animal behavior, these women manage to take up the entire width of the
block with dogs on expandable leashes, shopping bags, and long, toned legs, usually outfitted in workout garb, as they mark
their territory.
Grigsby Somerset was one of those mothers. On most days from September until early June, she could be found between 8:00 and
9:00 a.m. on the corner of 92nd Street and Madison Avenue at Yura, the gourmet coffee, muffin, and meeting place at the epicenter
of Carnegie Hill, a stone’s throw from a handful of the top schools in the city. Grigsby was a queen bee and was almost always
surrounded by others who aspired to be like her. She had been the alpha girl even as a child in Darien and had a certain level
of confidence that made others deferential toward her. Often, one of her friends getting a second cup of coffee as they sat in the window seats would say, “Latte, extra foam—right, Grigsby?” Knowing Grigsby’s coffee order signified
their status in her inner circle.
When Grigsby left Yura, it usually involved another ten minutes on the street outside, further cementing her dominance of
the neighborhood. But not this morning. Today she was situated firmly in her apartment on Park Avenue with important work
to do. The long and luxurious Southampton summer was clearly over, and as she pulled her blond locks into a messy bun and
then grabbed her list and bottle of water, she was not looking forward to the task that loomed ahead. For the Tuesday after
Labor Day is the dreaded application day for ongoing and nursery schools. Grigsby, however, was ready. She had the list of
schools that needed to be called for her four-year-old daughter, Bitten: Spence, Chapin, Brearley, Nightingale, and Sacred
Heart, with Hewitt and Marymount as “safeties” already loaded into her speed dial.
Spencer, eight, and William, six, were at Buckley, and while she was a firm believer in single-sex education, at least until
boarding school, Grigsby did wish for a moment that she had sent them to coed Trinity, Dalton, or Horace Mann so Bitten would
have sibling preference, thereby making today not quite as crucial. The process was so competitive, however, that there were
even some horror stories of younger brothers or sisters having to go to P.S. 6 because they hadn’t gotten into their sibling’s
school. More than one family had been known to suddenly announce they were moving to Greenwich, which coincidentally came
right after school notification dates in mid-February. But Grigsby knew that once you moved to Greenwich, even though the
public schools were terrific, everyone ended up wanting to be at Greenwich Academy or Brunswick, which meant ultimately encountering
the same application nightmare there. The fact is that some people would gladly pay $30,000 a year to have their kids at the
right schools with the right people rather than get an equally good free education at a public school.
Grigsby really would be happy with any of the schools, although she had her heart set on Spence. She pictured Bitten on her
first day of school next fall in her green plaid tunic outside 93rd Street and Madison, where Spence’s lower school was located
in the former Smithers Mansion, renovated with the proceeds of a successful capital campaign. Chapin was her second choice,
although there would be logistical issues getting from their apartment on 92nd and Park to Buckley on 73rd and “Lex,” to East
End Avenue and 84th Street. Even with Sheldon driving them in the Range Rover, it would be tough going every morning and barely
give her time to get to Yura to meet her friends. The congestion of limos on Oscar night had nothing on drop-off at private
schools in New York City.
While she had her preferences, each school had its own reputation that had stood the test of decades, though the city itself
had changed enormously during that time. The school a child went to could end up defining both the child and his or her family.
Spence had the right mix of parents with whom Grigsby wanted to be associated. The education, of course, would be top-notch there, as it
would at all the schools to which she was applying. Chapin still retained the old money feel that it had for generations,
going back to when a young Jacqueline Bouvier had been a student. Everyone said Nightingale was “wonderfully nurturing” and
had produced its own set of notable alumnae, from designer Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, to Democratic strategist Mandy Grunwald,
to Cecily von Ziegesar, author of the Gossip Girl books. And while she and Blake were not Catholic, she knew several families that were quite pleased with Sacred Heart and
Marymount—and what’s wrong with a little religion class to instill moral values in children? Of course, that Sacred Heart
uniform with its red gingham pinafore was just too adorable. Brearley was located down the street from Chapin and was excellent,
but she always felt the more “bohemian” families ended up there. She also remembered with dismay that the Brearley girls she
went to college with were often serial Grateful Dead followers and quoted Camille Paglia a bit too often. It was a little much for her. And because it was close to Chapin, she would have
the same location issues. Then there was Hewitt, which unlike the others had changed a great deal. Years before, it tended
to be the school for girls who were not as strong academically (at least according to their ERB scores), but in the last decade,
with the private school competition as intense as it was, Hewitt’s boat had risen along with the tide of fortunes in the city.
All in all, she had many wonderful choices—but first she needed to get the application process completed!
Before Blake left for work that morning, Grigsby made sure that he had the list of schools to call and instructions that he
and his assistant needed to follow. It was critical that all calls be made that morning, not just for her daughter’s future
academic career, but because Grigsby had an incredibly busy first day back ahead of her and she didn’t have time to chase
Blake down to make sure he had completed everything. She had a 12:30 lunch at Bergdorf, followed by a fitting in the couture
department on four for the gown she was planning to wear to the New Yorkers for Children Gala in two weeks. Then (desperately
needed) highlights at Blandi at 3:00 and hopefully some downtime to get herself back on her city schedule before she met Blake,
his half brother, Chip, and his new wife, Chessy, for dinner at Swifty’s at 7:00.
After spending the whole summer away, Grigsby knew things would be a complete madhouse. Thankfully, Donita had agreed to come
back to work on Labor Day, so with any luck, by later today most of the laundry would be done and put away. But there was
still so much to organize before she could even allow herself one second to relax. The boys had their first day of school
on Wednesday, and Bitten would start nursery school gradually that week, starting with an hour on Thursday and two hours on
Friday. Schools were concerned that after summer vacation four-year-olds might encounter the same separation anxiety they
had in their first year of nursery school, so they started with a gradual schedule over the course of several days, asking that a parent start out in the classroom, then move just outside,
and then be in the neighborhood, with the ultimate goal of separating entirely. Most children entered the room and barely
glanced at their mother. It usually wasn’t the children who needed the proximity, however, and once in a while an overly protective
and attentive mother had to be told gently that her child would be fine and asked to leave.
This was not the case with Grigsby, who found that getting back to normal, seeing all her friends, and gearing up for her
social calendar made for a hectic first week back. Having to be tied to school made that more difficult. It was really too
much for her. It would be terrific to have her own assistant, and she had started mentioning casually to Blake what a time-saver
it would be. She knew eventually she would get it, because eventually she got everything she wanted.
Grigsby was also irritated that Blake seemed distracted when he left at 7:15 that morning, just as she came in from her four-mile
run in Central Park with her trainer. She repeated the instructions she had given him and was astonished that he did not remember
the same drill they’d gone through for nursery school two years before or for the boys when they’d applied to ongoing schools.
She couldn’t be expected to take care of all these things herself. It was hard enough to keep their home as chicly appointed
as it was, manage their Southampton house, take care of their social schedule, plan vacations, do her charity work, keep the
children well dressed, and of course always look as good (not to mention toned) as she did without having another project
thrown on top of it. Each school to which they applied would require three visits: the tour, the parent interview, and then
the child interview. Multiply that by six schools and it was on the order of eighteen different appointments. Of course, applications
would have to be filled out, and more important, lists of all the boards of trustees would have to be studied to determine
whom they might approach for recommendations, because as everyone knew, anything that you needed in the city could be made possible by connections with the right people.
Frankly, though, Blake had seemed detached for the last several weeks. For the first time since they had been going to Southampton,
he hadn’t even made it out for all of the final two weeks of the summer. He had finally come out on the Jitney on Wednesday
night of the last week, but for most of Thursday and Friday he was pacing the long lawn in front of their house leading down
to the bay while on his cell phone. More than once he had approached her wide-eyed and angry, pantomiming at her to take the
kids away from him so he could finish his call. Welcome to life with children. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t spent all summer
trying to deal with them.
Grigsby knew she probably should pay more attention to what was going on in the financial world, but in general it was all
too complicated and boring. She had to admit that even for her, this year had certainly had its share of drama. Her friend
Winter “Winnie” Smith’s husband ran one of the derivatives desks at Bear Stearns. In March, when Bear Stearns was “acquired”
by JPMorgan at a fire sale price, she and her husband had lost almost everything, although he did end up getting hired by
JPMorgan. Grigsby hadn’t seen her much over the summer, and when she had, Winnie had seemed harried and drawn. She even thought
she’d noticed Winnie look away on the beach a few times and was sure she had crossed the street when Grigsby saw her on Jobs
Lane. What was even more shocking, the Smiths hadn’t come to the Somersets’ annual clambake on the beach, an event people
usually rearranged schedules to attend.
But thankfully Blake worked at Lehman Brothers, not Bear Stearns, so Grigsby really wasn’t all that concerned about their
situation. Anyway, everyone said that Bear always skated too close to the edge. Lehman Brothers had much more stability. At
least that was what Blake told her and what she had picked up from conversations between him and his friends from business
school, most of whom also worked on Wall Street.
“The Spence School admissions department, may I help you?”
Grigsby snapped back to attention from her thoughts as the voice answered on the other end.
She went through the list of questions, giving her and Blake’s name and their address, along with Bitten’s date of birth and
nursery school. She set the date for their tour, Monday, September 15, at 9:30 a.m. Fantastic. One down, six to go!
Thankfully, by 10:00 that morning she had reached all but two of the schools and e-mailed Blake for the third time to check
on his progress. With still no answer, she finally called his office and reached his assistant, Andrea.
“It’s Mrs. Somerset calling. Please put my husband on.” She always said the same thing and never bothered to ask Andrea how
she was or even said hello. Andrea had long ago stopped trying to say or do anything other than to get Blake on the phone,
since it was clear Grigsby didn’t really care, let alone even know who was answering the phone on the other end.
“Yes. Hello, Mrs. Somerset. I’m sorry, but Bla… er, Mr. Somerset has been out of the office all morning, and I’m afraid I
can’t reach him.”
“What??” Grigsby shouted, making no effort to conceal her anger. “Hasn’t he been making calls for schools? I made it absolutely clear
that was project numero uno today! Out of the office??!! I cannot believe him. I simply cannot believe him. Doesn’t he get what is going on today?!”
Andrea rolled her eyes at the phone and wondered if Grigsby had managed to read any papers in the last several months. Wall
Street and the economy were melting down, and it wasn’t just in The Wall Street Journal, but in the mainstream media. Somehow Marie Antoinette, as Andrea liked to refer to her, hadn’t gotten the memo.
Before Andrea could respond, however, Grigsby said brusquely, “Ugh… never mind. I’ll do everything myself—as I always do.
Just tell him to call me as soon as he gets out… and that the only schools we still need to speak to are Hewitt and Marymount… but I’m not going to be here past eleven because I have lunch and a lot of
other appointments… so call my cell or send me an e-mail or text… but I don’t know if I will be able to respond then… so if
not, I’ll see him at dinner… which he better not have forgotten about either… It’s at seven p.m. at Swifty’s with Chip and
Chessy.” Grigsby slammed the phone down, as usual without bothering even to say good-bye to Andrea.
Andrea could hardly contain a snort as she listened to Grigsby’s account of her “busy day.” Try getting up at 5:00 to take
the bus in from East Brunswick to Port Authority and then get up to Seventh and 49th Street and be lucky to get back home
by 8:00 p.m., with no time for errands except on weekends. Shaking her head, she dutifully wrote Grigsby’s message on Blake’s
memo pad of calls, which was already quite long.
But the truth was that while Blake had left that morning with his list of schools to call, he had no intention of making any
calls. He had a meeting that he couldn’t miss, couldn’t be interrupted from, and had been instructed under no uncertain terms
was highly confidential.
As Grigsby was starting her stressful day, several other “back to regular life” stories were unfolding across the city. A
few blocks away on 88th and Fifth, Sasha Silver was waking up to her own living hell. When the alarm went off for the first
time at 6:30 a.m., she covered her head with the pillow, as if it were a helmet that would protect her from the perils of
the morning—at least for the next nine minutes, until the snooze button went off. She knew from experience she could give
it one additional push until she would have to face the day.
Sasha always took off the last two weeks of the summer, and she looked forward to it all year long. It was a time when most
of the city was away, so she missed little—and there was less of a chance for things to run amuck at work. She was ecstatic
when her vacation finally arrived, though it also signaled the end of the summer. For Sasha, nothing on earth compared with
being at her beach house in Quogue, from the minute she woke up in the morning and took a leisurely walk down the driveway
to get the papers that she actually had time to read, as opposed to the rest of the year when she rushed through, barely reading
them. From walking by the ocean with her children collecting shells, to running every day, to consuming bottles of Chardonnay
at dinner parties nearly every evening with close friends, this was one of the periods of time when she allowed herself the
unusual luxury of contentment. Unfortunately, the joy and elation of the Friday night that started those two weeks were equally
matched by desperate agony as they ended. Her depression usually set in on Friday of Labor Day weekend, when even the September light seemed to taunt her that
summer was over. By Monday she was usually close to tears, truly despondent that the next day she would have to go back to
work and deal with her horrible situation.
And today she was even more upset and uneasy than in past years.
This situation was, to a certain extent, of her own making. In 2005, when she and her partners were approached to sell Silver
Asset Management Partners Inc. (SAMCO, as it was known), she was the one who had pushed for the deal, and as majority shareholder
she had the final decision. At the time, she knew deep down, frankly even not so deep down, that BridgeVest Financial was
not the right company to sell to, but Sasha had made an art form of assuming that once she got to the other side, she would
be able to take care of any problems that arose. That was the way she had always dealt with things. She was a caretaker and
unfortunately gave little thought to how much she might need or want to be taken care of herself.
Ultimately her partners had agreed to the deal, but they all retired within a year when it became clear that their new friends
in Springfield, Massachusetts, were not going to leave them alone. Feeling that she had made her bed so now she’d better sleep
in it, Sasha stayed on, and while she told all her friends and family that she would leave when her contract was up at the
end of 2010, she didn’t know how she could desert all the employees who had been loyal to the company and to her for all those
years.
To be fair, there was one great benefit: the money. It was hard to turn that down. After a career of working as long and hard
as she had, finally having enough money to spend was intoxicating. She and her husband, Adam, upgraded their apartment to
one overlooking Central Park, bought a boat, started taking more expensive vacations, increased their charitable giving, and
still managed to put away a sizable amount. For Sasha, the fun part was being able to make some venture investments. She loved hearing about a new business idea and plans for expansion. Some worked out and some didn’t, but these
investments allowed Sasha to feel she was still an entrepreneur instead of stuck in a corporate box with no room to move or
stretch.
The universal thing about having money, however, is that no matter how much you have, it isn’t enough. Credit cards still
have a balance due—only larger; someone else next door always seems to have more; the dinner party at someone’s apartment
or beach house is always that much larger and nicer; the jewelry is always that much more opulent. Someone else always seems
to have the perfect life in terms of the material possessions they have and others covet. Sasha was no different. She wondered
at times if she might have been able to get more if she hadn’t sold when she did. She was irritated at the number of people
who had ten times what she had but certainly weren’t ten times smarter (if at all).
SAMCO oversaw the assets of high-net-worth investors and focused on fixed income. Their goal was to preserve their clients’
wealth, not make huge gains. That was a hard strategy to maintain when other, riskier investments were in vogue. People were
always willing to bet it all on red, or Internet stocks, or subprime mortgages, in a bull market. She’d seen it all over twenty
years of working.
BridgeVest particularly liked SAMCO because it complemented their own business. SAMCO had a terrific reputation of being honest
and ethical and was a pristine name, something few companies could boast of, particularly as time went on. BridgeVest itself
had been owned for several years by Empire Bank, a New York–based commercial bank.
Sasha was good at what she did. She had a great perspective on strategy, a unique ability to execute any plan, and she was
liked by both clients and many of her colleagues, especially other women. There weren’t a lot of prominent women in her firm
on Wall Street, for that matter. As a result, she was their champion. She also had four children in three different schools
. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...