Spoiled by Caitlin Macy

Originally published in Time Out New York, March 12, 2009

If you’ve ever felt resentment toward privileged Upper East Siders, Caitlin Macy’s Spoiled may help you work out some of that rage. These short stories, which read like modern riffs on Edith Wharton’s dissections of the upper class, put wealthy women in their thirties under the microscope with scathing and often hilarious results. Macy’s pampered housewives have it all—the right husbands, the right zip codes—and yet are unprepared for the challenges that pop up after the wedding china has been unpacked and the nanny hired.

The author, who lives in Manhattan, delivers many laugh-out-loud scenes that will resonate with New Yorkers of all classes. The story “Christie” features an ostentatious wedding at the Pierre and a German groom with a mansion in “the Greenwich of Munich.” There are, of course, dangers to writing about the rich, who are easy targets. Sometimes Macy goes for the obvious jokes, satirizing those who use summer as a verb and can’t be bothered to learn the names of the help. As one woman jokes about her housekeeper: “She scrubs the crotch of my underwear by hand, and I just put ‘cash’ on the check.” It’s funny, albeit a little over the top.

Spoiled’s best stories are charged with insight and supple descriptions of human experience. Macy evokes plenty of loathing for her social-climbing characters, but there are surprising moments of compassion too. Case in point: “The Secret Vote,” in which a woman discovers that the baby she’s carrying has Down syndrome and must decide whether to terminate the pregnancy. Ultimately, this sharp-witted tour of contemporary high society is entertaining and insightful enough to justify its minor flaws.