The Booster Book

Jillian Siegel is living the quintessential Manhattan life: great clothes, fabulous boyfriend, a job at the hottest ad agency in town. But what nobody knows is that this twenty-nine year-old hides a dark secret - one that involves stuffing her oversize Gucci handbag with high-priced designer clothes and leaving the store without paying. There was once a time when Jillian didn't need to shop (much less steal) to feel whole. But that was long ago - when she spent hours amusing herself in the enchanted world of her uncle's elegant Upper East Side department store, and her mother's prolonged absences were easily forgotten with a new camel-hair coat or a fresh pair of Mary Janes. But then one day it was all gone - pulled right out from under her. Now, years later, her "perfect" life is loosely held together with half milligrams of Ativan and stolen cashmere scarves - and it's only a matter of time until everything crumbles.

Packed with vibrant characters, bristling dialogue, and rich detail, The Booster is a uniquely stylish, deftly woven story about discovering one's true self in the most unexpected places.

Publishers Weekly

Solow's spectacular debut sounds a warning to fashionista shopaholics while providing a healing catharsis that anyone grieving over the loss of a loved one can appreciate. "It is mine. It is mine. It is mine" is the mantra Jillian Siegel repeats before any major shoplifting expedition, believing her hobby is not a crime but her "birthright." The Upper East Sider's addiction to larceny increases after she loses her ad agency job just before the agency acquires the coveted Loevner's department store account. Loevner's had once been owned by Jillian's dying uncle Bingo, a beloved parental figure. As a little girl in bunny fur, Jillian had appeared in the original ad that defined Loevner's upscale glamour. After Shelly, a needy young drifter whom Jillian meets in jail in the wake of a tourist-trap incident, introduces Jillian into a Peruvian shoplifting ring, Jillian becomes the ring's star American booster. "Designer clothes are like armor" providing "protection from the masses," Jillian thinks, but by the thrilling wind-up, Solow, an ad agency veteran, has ripped the tags off this assumption, forcing Jillian to face what compels her to steal. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.