Primates of Park Avenue A memoir

FEW PAGES into "Primates of Park Avenue," I raised an eyebrow as high as a McDonald's arch. Was Wednesday Martin, a Midwestern-born Ph.D., trying to explain the rites of the Upper East Side to me, an autochthonous Manhattanite schooled at one of the neighborhood's top "learning huts"? She was a late transfer to the New York troop - a particularly vicious troop, at that - and it's a weak position to be in throughout the primate kingdom, whether human or monkey. I underestimated Martin with few repercussions, but the Soul-Cycled, estrogen-dimmed and ravenously hungry young mothers who similarly exhibited New York's inbred superciliousness have done so at their peril, because now she's gone and told the world their tricks. "I was afraid to write this book," Martin confesses, but I guess she got over it. Instead, she obsessively deconstructs the ways of her new tribe, from the obvious - "No one was fat. No one was ugly. No one was poor. Everyone was drinking" - to the equally obvious but narratively rich: "It is a game among a certain set to incite the envy of other women." The result is an amusing, perceptive and, at times, thrillingly evil takedown of upper-class culture by an outsider with a frontrow seat. The price of the ticket, a newly purchased Park Avenue condop in the 70s with a closet designated exclusively for her handbags, wisely goes unmentioned, the better to establish rapport with readers in Des Moines. The Dian Fossey-in-velvet-kitten-face-flats act is a gimmick more suited to a midcareer Jennifer Aniston movie. But the sociology rings true, even if the codification can be off (a common practice among stay-athome moms and their working husbands in a flush year called "presents under the Christmas tree" is here designated a "wife bonus"). And Martin's writing is confident and evocative, if excitable. "It was the land of gigantic, lusciously red strawberries at Dean & DeLuca and snug, tidy Barbour jackets and precious, pristine pastries in exquisite little pastry shops on spotless, sedate side streets," she says of her adopted habitat. "Everything was so honeyed and moneyed and immaculate that it made me dizzy sometimes." Beyond the private planes, waterfront in the Hamptons and apartments with ceilings high enough to fit a bouncy castle for a child's party, Martin sees a strict social pecking order in which the community's animating energy derives mostly from children's matriculation at a "TT" (top-tier) school. Lululemon, the leisure wear of the lady who lunches, to Martin, is "a kind of girdle or exoskeleton, smoothing out bumps, holding everything up and in while they appeared to bear all." The grueling, high-priced barre class Physique 57 is a wonder, and she is agog at "the indescribable strangeness of this disconnected group sex experience." Her reading of the fashion attire of real estate brokers for "triple mint" apartments is brilliant. One requires security and protection in such a world. Martin finds it in a Birkin bag, which she absolutely must have as her "sword and shield" on the sidewalks west of Lexington Avenue. When she whispers this desire to her husband, "he just sort of groaned," though he quickly agreed to buy it the next day. "I laughed - a loud, braying, mirthless, ungenerous laugh that seemed to alarm him," she writes. How could he be so jejune to think that Hermès lets you waltz in and buy a Birkin? According to the BBC, "demand is such that there is no longer a waiting list for the bag, in the classic sense of the term. It's a wish list, not an order list." The scarcity of the Birkin, as Martin points out, is the thing-in-itself for upper-class women, a way to "rejuvenate our own scarcity, to reinvigorate the sense of everyone in our society of our own value." YOU NEED A TASTE for these kinds of insights to make it through Martin's book, and she's less successful at tying up loose ends by sharing a harrowing experience of fertility. Try as she might to convince us that it was only in her darkest period that she realized the power of the Upper East Side community, she doesn't quite cleanse the palate of the tart taste of her prior chapters. But at a time when a social comedy of the rich à la Tom Wolfe has been lost in national discourse - the hardnews press, at the moment, likes billionaires as reprehensible, emotionally stunted villains, and soft news is so deeply in thrall to luxury advertising revenue that it can't afford anything but fawning coverage - it's fun to dip into a sophisticated, if silly, look at the Upper East Side's Twilight Zone. "Primates of Park Avenue" is also a good reminder that as much as we may envy the wealthy, they fight every day for a place in their own social hierarchy, too. 'No one was fat. No one was ugly. No one was poor. Everyone was drinking.' VANESSA GRIGORIADIS is a contributing editor at New York magazine, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.

When Martin, a social researcher with a background in anthropology, moves from her laid-back West Village neighborhood to the rarefied atmosphere of Manhattan's Upper East Side to be closer to her in-laws, she finds herself in a world of the 1% that is often wholly unwelcoming, inhabited by the noxious and entitled. Though she's definitely not poor, Martin's also not on the level of her new neighbors, who vacation in Aspen for every winter break and think nothing of shelling out $25,000 on kids' finger paintings at a school function. In this memoir, which has been the subject of controversy, Martin approaches her new environs anthropologically, studying the mean mommies and their hierarchies as they relate to each other (silently and intensely at their beloved Physique 57 classes, in which their determination to get cut and look ever younger is palpable) and outsiders like Martin (with hostility, the cut direct, and sometimes outright aggression). However, when she suffers an unexpected tragedy, she receives nothing but kindness from some of the women and gains perspective on what is frivolous and what is truly meaningful. The Midwest-raised Martin is easy for readers to sympathize with as she attempts to find new friends while old ones drift away, and hopes to not be treated as a playground pariah while securing playdates for her son. It's hard, though, to care about her neighbors-and even about Martin when she finds herself coveting an $8,000 Berkin bag in order to show dominance within the pack. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Primates of Park Avenue CHAPTER ONE Comme Il Faut Fieldnotes Environment and ecology The island is a geographically, culturally, and politically isolated landmass roughly seven times longer than it is wide. The climate is temperate, with relatively harsh winters and extremely hot and humid summers that, in recent years, approximate tropical conditions due in part to two centuries of intensive land clearing and industrial practices. The island's longitude is 40°43'42" N, and its latitude is 73°59'39" W. Island dwellers live in a state of ecological release--resources such as food and water are abundant and easily procured; disease is minimal; there is no predation. Living in a niche characterized by literally unprecedented abundance, untethered from hardship, the wealthiest islanders are able to invest heavily in each and every offspring and to invent elaborate and complex social codes and rites, the observance of which are time-, labor-, and resource-intensive. In spite of the extraordinary abundance of food, water, and other resources island-wide, there is persistent and marked poverty in some areas. The isolation, extreme population density, and vast discrepancies in wealth, as well as traditionally gender-scripted roles and behaviors around child rearing and work, may inform and in part account for many of the strange-seeming behaviors of the wealthiest island dwellers, discussed in the following pages. Island dwellings The island's inhabitants are primarily vertical dwellers, making their homes directly on top of one another in structures of finely ground stone. Living in these "vertical villages" allows inhabitants to maximize physical space, a precious commodity in short supply on their tiny and remarkably densely populated island. In some locations, particularly where the wealthiest islanders reside, these vertical villages are notably restrictive, with a secretive "council of elders" presiding over who will and will not be allowed to live there. Scouting out a dwelling is one of the most labor-intensive practices of the female members of the tribe I studied--most often the task is undertaken by primaparas. Almost without exception, "dwelling shamans" guide these women in their quests for homes--which are also quests for identity. The shamans offer specialized knowledge, counsel, and emotional support throughout this costly, protracted, and painstaking initiation process. Geographical origins of islanders Island dwellers have heterogeneous geographical origins. Many dispersed at sexual maturity from their natal groups in distant, smaller, and even rural villages, immigrating to the island for enhanced professional, sexual, and marital prospects. Other island dwellers are indigenous; their status is higher than that of the nonautochthonous residents, particularly if they were raised in certain corners of the island or attended particular "learning huts" while growing up there. Beliefs of and about islanders Whether they are autochthonous or émigrés, island dwellers are believed by outsiders, many visitors, and their countrymen to harbor haughty attitudes about themselves and their island. They are known throughout the land for their brusqueness; intellectual gifts; dazzling adornment practices; and acumen in barter, trade, and negotiation. Increasingly, their trade is in invisible ideas and abstractions, enhancing the sense that they have privileged knowledge and even "magical" powers. The journeys and tribulations of those who move to the island and struggle to succeed there are the stuff of legend, literally--there exists a long oral and written tradition about the supposedly indomitable and unique spirit of people who are able to "make it there." Once they have established themselves on the island, it is said, they can "make it anywhere." Resource acquisition and distribution On the whole, the island dwellers are the richest in the entire nation, living untethered from the environmental constraints that have such a profound impact on life-history courses in other habitats worldwide. Obtaining adequate calories for themselves and their children, the main ecological challenge to parents worldwide and throughout our evolutionary prehistory, is a simple given for wealthy island dwellers. However, as in many industrial and postindustrial societies, fathers of the very traditionally gender-scripted tribe I studied tend to focus on the job of provisioning their wives and families with less-tangible resources, including financial, social, and cultural capital. While many island-dwelling females work outside the home, during the childbearing and child-rearing years, many wealthy female islanders believe it is their "role" to remain home with their children, where they are often assisted by alloparents--individuals other than parents who take on parental roles. They call these alloparents "housekeepers," "nannies," and "caregivers." Island organization The island is organized, in the minds of island dwellers, into four quadrants: Up, Down, Right, and Left. The "Up" and "Down" areas are believed to be markedly distinct--with Up being preferable for raising children and Down being considered primarily a place for pre-reproductives, cultural "outsiders," feasting, and ecstatic nighttime rites. Islanders further divide their island into left and right hemispheres. "Left" and "Right," like "Up" and "Down," are believed to have different--even polar opposite--characteristics. Left is believed to be more casual and progressive, in contrast to Right's perceived formality and conservatism. Excerpted from Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir by Wednesday Martin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.