#wiveslikeus

Plum Sykes, the bestselling author of Bergdorf  Blondes, The Debutant Divorcee, and Party Girls and Die in Pearls (my favorite),skewers the rich and ridiculous in her new novel WIVES LIKE US (Harper Collins, 5/14/24). The heroines are substantial women, the socially ambitious denizens of the hilly British Cotswolds. They command their hereditary estates, amid quaint hamlets,with an eye on the London press..

For these literally entitled British women, being a successful wife means going to fantastic lengths in a quests for excellence. "Keeping up with the Jonses" is a dire competition, where one's brand, a uniquely individual identity, must out-class all competitors. This very social contest pits the heroines of  WIVES LIKE US against the less tasteful or virtuous, yet equally ingenious and perhaps unscrupulous wives of other estates. Of course such expectations, fantastic or not, carry the frisson of risk-- failure and self undoing.