JUDY BLUME, author of Summer Sisters
ADMISSIONS is fun [and] hilarious . . . It'll get you packing for the suburbs and public schools -- the right public schools."
JAY MULVANEY, author of Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Entertaining and Diana & Jackie
"ADMISSIONS is sharp, funny, and nicely nasty.
VICTORIA GOLDMAN, co-author of The Manhattan Family Guide to Private Schools and Selective Public Schools
Beware, nobody -- accepted or rejected -- from Manhattan's private school scene escapes harsh grading.
Book Description
This sharply observed and bitingly funny novel exposes the over-the-top absurdity of New York City`s elite private school admissions circus. For Manhattan's most affluent parents, the Tuesday after Labor Day marks the beginning of the city's most competitive and vicious blood sport: the start of the private school admissions process. But for Helen Drager, mother of Zoe, it shouldn't be such an ordeal. After all, Helen's best friend Sara is an admissions officer at Zoe's current K-8. But Sara's position becomes precarious, and Helen soon finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mounting lunacy generated by the fierce competition.
Admissions FROM THE CRITICS
Karen Karbo - The New York Times
That such a slender premise anchors a 355-page book is a testament both to Lieberman's ability to keep the application process interesting (no small feat; at times it's like trying to inject drama into filing a tax return) and to the American public's insatiable need both to bask in and ridicule the minutiae of the lives of the uber-wealthy. In the same dark cranny of our national psyche where we gloat over the misfortunes of Martha Stewart, we love books like Admissions.
Publishers Weekly
"The Tuesday after Labor Day marked the official start of admissions season, the Manhattan parents' version of a blood sport." Readers in the know will groan in recognition at Lieberman's opening and the antics that follow. Even decent, psychoanalyzed, liberal folks such as Helen and Michael Drager are provoked into ludicrous, self-absorbed behavior. Unlike the more viciously cartooned narcissistic parents, they genuinely want what's best for Zoe, who's applying to high schools. But that doesn't stop them from running amok. Helen goads Michael, a producer on the Cooking Network, into offering a show to the ghastly admissions director of the Fancy Girls' School, then almost goes too far with Phillip Cashin, a handsome widowed father she meets on the admissions circuit. Only Zoe keeps her head, falling in love with a fellow musician, Max, and actually considering a defection to (gasp) public school. Debut novelist Lieberman's writing is a little giddy on the big dose of venom she pours. The author peoples her world with a blur of hyphenated, latte-swigging, multicultural, gender-blending parents and megalomaniacal school administrators. Whole scenes are setups for puns: "Kid pro quo"; "nocturnal admissions." But any New York parent contemplating a move to the suburbs will find this novel fabulous ammunition. And readers everywhere else will be gratified by the wild ending, a fund-raising cruise all too aptly titled "A Night to Remember." Agent, Robin Rue. (Sept. 15) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
For its intended audience, a laugh-out-loud debut about admissions to Manhattan's coveted private schools. The story runs from September through February. All private school admissions must be sent in by the Thursday after Labor Day, and many of the parental twists and turns here are taken from real life, like one man's donation of $1 million to get his obstreperous son into kindergarten. Helen Drager's daughter, Zoe, is completing The School's K-8 grades and now must get into a private high-school as a sophomore. Helen, an art historian, has asked for admission forms from six: the Fancy Girls' School, the Progressive School, the Quasi Country School, the Safety School, the Very Brainy Girls' School, and the Downtown School. Advising her is best friend Sara Nash, admissions officer of The School, which claims itself able to get any of its students into their place of choice. But queenly Pamela Rothchild, The School's matriarch, plays hide-and-seek with parents desperate for help in getting their children into high school as she cozies up to big donors and celebs. Even Sara can't fill the kindergarten quota without Pamela's okay, while poor Helen, whose unhelpful husband produces TV Cooking Network shows, now wakes at three a.m. suffering from "nocturnal admissions." Must Zoe's best friend, Julian, a cross-dresser who had the lead in Auntie Mame, go to boarding school? With October as interview month, nervous Zoe asks Julian whether she should give blow jobs to be a popular coed in high school. November brings a collective soothing to the insecurities of parents. For admissions directors, December is the cruelest month, stuffed with eleventh-hour applications. And there's funereal news forhopeful parents: haughty Pamela, overthrown, quits for a fictitious better job. January finds Helen fending off a romantic art dealer, while Sara, The School's new head, does psychic housecleaning. Which school does Zoe land in? Not telling. All in all: big fun for select readers.
Art & Photography
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