Pineapple Street
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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3.8 • 137 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
'Searing, hilarious and poignant' MIRANDA COWLEY HELLER
'Smart and clever' GUARDIAN
'A killer debut about class, love and money' GRAZIA
'Marvellous - clever, funny and brilliantly well observed' INDIA KNIGHT
Meet the Stockton women of Brooklyn Heights: Darley, who was born with money; Sasha, who married into it; and Georgiana, who wants to give it all away.
Among glittering parties, weekend homes and hungover brunches, the three will have to grapple with the burden of parental expectations, the hardships and bewilderment of growing up, and the miles between the haves and have-nots.
Pineapple Street is a witty and wicked novel about New York’s one percenters: their first loves, family feuds and the complexities of being human – even when you have everything.
'Wise, emotionally honest fun' HELEN FIELDING
'Deliciously fun' KEVIN KWAN
'Lovely, absorbing, acutely observed' NICK HORNBY
Instant New York Times bestseller, March 2023
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jackson's clever if tepid debut chronicles the struggles of three women born or married into an old-monied New York City family. Cord Stockton, the family's middle child, marries Sasha, and the couple takes over the family's Brooklyn Heights house. Sasha, who comes from a middle-class Rhode Island family, is referred to as "the GD" (gold digger) by Cord's sisters. Darley Stockton, the oldest, gives up her banking career to be a full-time mom. Georgiana, the youngest, is mainly a directionless party girl with a gig at a nonprofit, where she's sleeping with her married boss. Tensions come to a head as Darley's and Georgiana's fortunes shift and Sasha decides to beat it for Rhode Island. Unfortunately, most of the characters aside from Sasha are underdeveloped (Stockton matriarch Tilda delivers predictably cartoonish lines, like "Sasha, would you like to tell us what it was like growing up poor?"), though Jackson shines in her incisive observations about the ravages of contemporary real estate developments (at the former Hotel St. George, "ghosts of the original remained, the green balconies that once overlooked the swimming pool... now home to a series of elliptical machines where old people and college students climbed to nowhere"). Despite the dusty feeling, this has its moments.
Customer Reviews
Edith Wharton on Effexor
The author is American, and an editor at Knopf. This is her first novel.
Among the most desirable and expensive residential locations in Brooklyn Heights, NYC are the “fruit streets”: Pineapple, Orange and Cranberry. Three generations of the Stockton family, around which this novel is based, made their money, and continue to make it, in real estate. Mom, whose major interest is table settings, and Dad, vacate their historical “limestone” (rather than brownstone) on the titular street and move into a nearby condo so that son and heir Cord (how much more WASP could a name be) and his wife (of middle class origins and therefore suspicious) Sasha can live there, except they’re not allowed to change anything inside, including a venerable chaise tongue with bed bugs. Eldest daughter Darley (see earlier comment about names) who met her Korean-American hubby while they were working at the same investment bank, now stays home now to look after the kids. Youngest daughter Georgianna is unmarried, works for an NGO, and plays a lot of tennis with Mom and a married guy from work. Yada, yada. The end.
The prose is well crafted, the dialogue rich with satire. The characters aren’t horrible, neither are they particular likeable. They’re just one percenters living deeply shallow lives until near the end when the author makes a partially successful attempt at salvaging a couple of them.
According to the NY Times, this is the novel Jane Austen would have written if she had lived in Brooklyn Heights in the 21st century. I doubt it. Edith Wharton on SNRIs maybe.
It’s ok
This book makes you want to bring out the violins 🎻