Fabulous Fiction Firsts #823 - The 1%

Wed, 05/03/2023 - 10:22am by muffy

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (also available as eBook and audiobook) is a deliciously funny, sharply observed “comedy of manners, charting the fates of the Stockton siblings and their spouses…A wealthier cousin of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest. ” (Kirkus Reviews) 

The Stocktons, residents of Brooklyn Heights’ renowned fruit streets are the product of generational wealth and capitalist success. Cord, middle-child and the only son, had just moved into the family home recently vacated by his parents, downsizing to a nearby condo. His wife Sasha, a successful graphic designer from a middle class family, secretly referred to by his sisters as "the GD" (gold digger) because of her hesitation in signing a pre-nup, is struggling to fit in with this tight-knit family. 

Darley, the eldest daughter who gave up her banking career for motherhood, regrets renouncing her inheritance when she married Malcolm, a first generation Korean American, now that a scandal has derailed Malcolm's career. Party-girl Georgiana, the youngest, considers herself a “do-gooder”, works for a  non-profit and is secretly involved with a colleague while no one cares to tell her he is married.

“Jenny Jackson has written a lovely, absorbing, acutely observed novel about class, money and love. These are the themes of Henry James and Jane Austen, but they are observed with a fresh eye and a contemporary voice. Who wouldn’t want to read Pineapple Street?” ~ Nick Hornby