Kwan moves on with Sex and Vanity
Sex and Vanity
Kevin Kwan Doubleday
The wedding of the summer is still on — and you’d have to be crazy rich not to squeal in vicarious wonder at its opulence.
Kevin Kwan’s new stand-alone novel, Sex and Vanity — following his wildly popular Crazy Rich Asians trilogy — opens at an over-the-top affair in Capri, Italy, before whisking readers off to the Hamptons.
Sex and Vanity, a play on E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel A Room With a View, begins at the nuptials of two “international ooh-la-las,” the son of an Italian count and a Taiwanese heiress. Among the attendees: 19-year-old protagonist Lucie Churchill and her cousin Charlotte. Lucie is a “hapa” — half Chinese, half WASP — and is both drawn to and repelled by another guest, George Zao. By the end of the wedding reception, the two have accidentally consummated their attraction in public, horrifying Charlotte.
Fast-forward five years, and Lucie is engaged to Cecil Pike, “the man that Vulture, Buzzfeed and The Skimm had proclaimed ‘The Most Eligible Gentleman on the Planet.’” He’s unbearable, a nouveau riche who clashes with Lucie’s old-money family. Still, she’s wearing a $26.5 million ring on her finger when George appears in New York, stirring up long-suppressed desires. As their worlds collide, Lucie goes to baffling extremes to punt George back out of her orbit.
Some of the novel’s most entertaining — and outlandish — scenes come at Cecil’s expense: He proposes to Lucie via a flash mob that includes a troupe of street dancers, ballerinas and a marching band in full regalia. Later he renovates their home so it includes, among other features, a Venetian canal in the living room and a tri-level infinity pool with a glass bottom so you can see straight into the wine cellar.
Part of the novel’s fun is that Kwan is in on the joke: He excels at satirizing the uber-rich. The characters deliver digs as only a one-percenter could: “It looks like a Versace dress exploded all over my room,” Charlotte complains about a subpar hotel. Kwan’s trademark snark, which hooked Crazy Rich Asians fans, remains on display in this new offering.