The Wrong Kind of Money
A Novel
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4.4 • 8 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A gripping novel of dark family secrets, bigotry, lust, and lies set in the world of the phenomenally wealthy
The Liebling family is among the wealthiest in New York, but in the eyes of “old money” gentile aristocrats like the patrician Van Degans, they will always be lower-class Jewish nouveau riche—especially since it’s common knowledge that patriarch Jules Liebling built the powerful Ingraham Corporation from the profits he made selling liquor during Prohibition while in cahoots with dangerous mobsters. Jules is long dead and his widow, Hannah, runs the business with a tyrannical hand. Hannah is reluctant to turn over the reins to the heir apparent, her capable son Noah, despite the fact that she is now well into her eighties.
But when Noah’s wife, Carol, meets Georgette Van Degan for lunch at Le Cirque, gossip circulates around Manhattan about a thaw between the families and, quite possibly, a partnership. As rumors fly, family skeletons on both sides are exposed, leading to jealousy, betrayal, and even violence. Author Stephen Birmingham explores the dark side of wealth, family, and privilege in The Wrong Kind of Money, brilliantly displaying his phenomenal storytelling skill along with his intimate knowledge of the lives of America’s aristocrats.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
More than a half-century of evolving disharmony between New York City Jews and gentiles goes under the burning glass in this roman a clef from bestselling author Birmingham (Carriage Trade). Hannah Liebling, aging CEO of liquor giant Ingrahams, quotes her late husband's adage that "once a man has $10 million he's no longer thought of as being Jewish. He's merely thought of as being rich." But her black-sheep son Cyril is quick to disagree: "If it's the wrong kind of money, and you're the wrong kind of Jew, it makes all the difference in the world." Against a backdrop of all-important social distinctions, Birmingham delivers standard intergenerational soap-opera: Hannah refuses to turn over the corporate reins to good son Noah because he won't let her put her baby sister, Bathy, back on the company payroll--but Noah hates Aunt Bathy because in his college days he caught her in flagrante delicto with his father. In the meantime, courted socially by the snobby trophy spouse of a WASP liquor-bottler, Noah's Catholic wife, Carol, is scheming to gain social standing by being appointed a trustee at the Metropolitan Museum. Stir in the malevolent Yalie author of a campus sex expose, an oversexed teenage prodigy, assorted adulteries, messy sibling secrets, homosexuality, incest, addiction and blackmail; add a sprig of statutory rape; garnish with a dash of homicide, and you have an overspiced, often implausible chronicle of upper-class intrigues that borrows from true-life stories and is sure to generate the right kind of money from Birmingham's fans.
