Three Girls and Their Brother Book

I nearly didn't make it through this overpraised novel (by a decent playwright and television screenwriter), but had insomnia and nothing better to do than read it while lying on the sofa and cursing my existence. From the first chapter it is painfully clear that this book is exactly what the world does not need more of -- an examination of overindulged rich New York teenagers who think Holden Caulfield is the height of wit and authenticity. Let me tell you, A Catcher in the Rye wasn't that good to begin with, no matter what your high school English teacher may have told you. All of those irritating tics are everpresent here -- I ask you, when was the last time you heard a New York City private school teenager call something "lousy" or "crummy" or "phony"? Exactly. Janet Maslin nails it thusly:

Among the sore-thumb Salingeresque locutions that color the book, no matter which of its similar voices is narrating: "sort of corny," "lousy," "swell," "phony," "just a little kid," "that's exactly what it felt like, it really was," and "which I found really creepy, if you want to know the truth."

In addition to the inauthentic voices of the four central characters, who take turns telling the story (briefly described, three hot redheaded teenage sisters and their sad-sack brother, the grandchildren of a famous intellectual, who are somehow launched into the celebutante stratosphere when someone gets the brilliant idea of doing a fashion spread of them for The New Yorker of all publications), all the voices sound exactly alike. Add in cartoon cut-out figures of lecherous movie stars, ruthless agents, mealy-mouthed publicists, and incompetent, harridan parents, and you have a book that's long on flashbulb images of a tiny segment of fashionista nightlife and short on plot, character development, wit, or really any redeeming literary feature.

Worst of all, nothing actually really happens. There are repeated references to "and here's where things really started to go haywire" but the story has no arc. Some hints are dropped about the monstrous things the absent daddy once did to the oldest daughter, and there is some business involving a gun in a hotel room, but nothing is developed. Moreover, the book doesn't really make sense. I mean, the kids live with their ex-beauty queen mother who pimps them out to movie stars and talent agents in BROOKLYN? Puh-leeze.