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Published by William Morrow
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The critically acclaimed author of Good-bye and Amen,
Leeway Cottage, and More Than You Know returns
with a sharply perceptive and emotionally resonant novel about
the power of knowledge, the consequences of rumor, and the
unexpected price of friendship. "Did you know that the origin of the word gossip in English is
'god-sibling'? It's the talk between people who are godparents
to the same child, people who have a legitimate loving interest
in the person they talk about. It's talk that weaves a net of
support and connection beneath the people you want to protect." Loviah "Lovie" French owns a small, high-end dress shop on
Manhattan's Upper East Side. Renowned for her taste, charm, and
discretion, Lovie is the one to whom certain women turn when they
need "just the thing" for key life events -- baptisms and balls,
weddings and funerals -- or when they just want to dish in the
dressing room. Among the people who depend on Lovie's confidence
are her two best friends since boarding school days: Dinah
Wainwright and Avis Metcalf. Outspoken and brimming with confidence, Dinah made a name for
herself as a columnist covering the doings of New York's
wealthiest and most fabulous. Shy, proper Avis, in many ways
Dinah's opposite, rose to prominence in the art world with her
quiet manners, hard work, and precise judgment. Despite the deep
affection they both feel for Lovie, they have been more or less
allergic to each other since a minor incident decades earlier that
has been remembered and resented with what will prove to be
unimaginable consequences. These uneasy acquaintances become unwillingly bound to each
other when Dinah's favorite son and Avis's only daughter fall in
love and marry. On the surface, Nick and Grace are the perfect
match -- a playful, romantic, buoyant, and beautiful pair. But
their commitment will be strained by time and change: career
setbacks, reckless choices, the birth of a child, jealousies, and
rumor. At the center of their orbit is Lovie, who knows everyone's
secrets and manages them as wisely as she can. Which is not wisely
enough, as things turn out -- a fact that will have a shattering
effect on all their lives. An astute chronicler of everything that makes us human, Beth
Gutcheon delivers her most powerful and emotionally devastating
novel to date. Gossip is a tale of intimacy and betrayal, trust
and fidelity, friendship, competition, and motherhood that
explores the myriad ways we use and abuse "information" about
others -- be it true, false, or imagined -- to sustain, and
occasionally destroy, one another. pub date: 2012-03-20 | Hardcover | 9780061931420 |
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