Her Infinite Variety Pa Book

HER INFINITE VARIETY spins the charmingly wicked tale of Clara Hoyt, perhaps one of the most colorful characters in the Auchincloss oeuvre. Employing uncommon savvy and elan, she charts a wildly entertaining course to the inner sanctum of New York's aristocracy and to the boardrooms of the publishing world. With characteristic urbanity and wit, Auchincloss offers a larger comment on what some women did to get ahead in the middle of the twentieth century.

Library Journal

Well, I don't know about variety. Clara Hoyt seems like a pretty typical young, striving aristocratic woman earlier in this century, when the clear path to coldblooded success was to marry well. Clara's move after Vassar to her first marriage to a good society match is expected, but when World War II intervenes and her husband is posted abroad, she has an affair with (egad!) a left-leaning journalist. He dies in Europe, her marriage eventually gives way, and she moves on with a magazine career of her own. This allows her to break up the marriage of her boss and eventually inherit his fortune. Billed as a novel of manners, Auchincloss's 56th book is a two-dimensional view of New York society life that breezes quickly through a few decades but offers no real insight into the human experience. Not recommented.