Book of the week

MRS

CAITLIN MACY (SIMON AND SCHUSTER) $35

Reviewed by Felicity Price

Acast of unrelatable, super-rich characters, described in sentences that go on and on through dashes and commas until there is no breath remaining, and a plot that takes forever to reveal itself, does not make for an easy read.

Especially not in the milieu of New York’s Upper East Side, where the husbands add to their billions at their private banks while their wives focus on toning, trimming and shopping.

It’s a world away from our own, and there is little attempt to engage the reader in this world.

Told from multiple points of view, the most relatable character is Gwen, whose US attorney husband means she is in the lower echelon – only upper-middle class – making her more aligned with the nannies waiting outside the exclusive St Timothy’s preschool than the superrich mothers in furs and Chanel.

It is Gwen who gradually uncovers the scandalous past of the aloof Philippa Lye and her link with newcomer Minnie Curtis and the investigation her husband is working on. But that’s only after a couple of hundred pages of Greek chorus-like declaiming around the peripheries.

Mrs has been talked up to be the next Big Little Lies, or even an Edith Whartonlike skewering of the idle rich. But instead of the subtlety of Wharton, Macy employs the sledgehammer approach; and the layered tension and relatable characters of Big Little Lies are completely absent. Mrs will most likely appeal to the American market, where subtlety is a forgotten art and fascination with Manhatten’s billionaire bankers trumps all.