Fun & Famous
A PEEK INSIDE THE PARK AVENUE PRINCESSES
At the beginning of Amayzine, I borrowed the book Bergdorf Blondes from May. In short: a hilariously written story full of laugh-out-loud anecdotes about super-rich girls in the Upper East Side in New York. A kind of Gossip Girl, but funnier and smarter. I really devoured that book and some quotes still serve as life lessons. I wholeheartedly recommend you all to read it.
But yesterday I found out that there is another book that is about the same delightful neighborhood. It's called Primates of Park Avenue, written by Wednesday Martin. While Bergdorf Blondes is about fiction, Primates of Park Avenue is all completely true what is on the paper. Wednesday is an anthropologist who married a banker, living in the most expensive part of New York – and that’s where she suddenly lived too. That was quite an adjustment for the researcher: she found herself among pearl necklaces, tinted cars, and spoiled children.
“All their misfortune is wiped away with trips on the private jet to Las Vegas or Paris”
So she decided to use her background as an anthropologist to navigate the crazy world that lies on Park Avenue. The desire for a Hermès bag can be explained by certain biological interests related to dominance in group processes, mothers protect their young – and these mothers do that by sending their children to school in an armored vehicle with a private driver. It doesn’t differ much from the animal kingdom actually.
The children go to the most extravagant courses, the women spend an average of 85,000 euros per year on their appearance, every pill that comes on the market is used and all their misfortune is wiped away with trips on the private jet to Las Vegas or Paris. And, extra juicy, some women keep part of the household money hidden in a secret account and some men give their wives a ‘year-end bonus’ if they manage to enroll the kids in the right schools.
Total madness then. And that’s exactly why you want to read this book. I certainly do. And May, you do too. I just know it.
