Pineapple Street
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
-
- £3.99
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
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Stocktons are hardly a typical family: this Brooklyn-based real-estate dynasty has the kind of wealth unthinkable to most. It would certainly have been unthinkable to Sasha, before she married into it. But as we get to know her and her two sisters-in-law, Darley and Georgiana—Pineapple Street switches between the viewpoints of these very different women—we begin to understand them, even as they struggle to understand each other and sometimes themselves. This witty family drama is a nuanced look at how class can impact relationships (the sisters’ suspicious treatment of Sasha, who grew up less well-off than they did, is sometimes flat out shocking) as well as what it is to be a part of a family while forging your own (often turbulent) romantic and professional life.
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.