Summary
Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe.
After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place. She understood the other mothers' snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns; display rituals; physical adornment, mutilation, and mating practices; extra-pair copulation; and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking, and hilariously unexpected.
Every city has its Upper East Side, and in Wednesday's memoir, readers everywhere will recognize the strange cultural codes of powerful social hierarchies and the compelling desire to climb them. They will also see that Upper East Side mothers want the same things for their children that all mothers want-safety, happiness, and success-and not even sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs can protect this ecologically released tribe from the universal experiences of anxiety and loss. When Wednesday's life turns upside down, she learns how deep the bonds of female friendship really are.
Intelligent, funny, and heartfelt, Primates of Park Avenue lifts a veil on a secret, elite world within a world-the exotic, fascinating, and strangely familiar culture of privileged Manhattan motherhood.
Author Notes
Wednesday Martin is an American author who grew up in Michigan and received a doctorate in comparative studies from Yale University in 1996. Martin taught cultural studies and literature at Yale, The New School for Social Research and Baruch College. She worked in qualitative market research and advertising for several years. She is a blogger, and commenter on parenting, step-parenting, and popular culture. She has written for Psychology Today, the New York Post, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Fitness, Glamour, TIME and The Huffington Post. She is the author of three books: the instant #1 New York Times bestseller Primates of Park Avenue and Stepmonster, and Marlene Dietrich.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When Martin, a social researcher with a background in anthropology, moves from her laid-back West Village neighborhood to the rarefied atmosphere of Manhattan's Upper East Side to be closer to her in-laws, she finds herself in a world of the 1% that is often wholly unwelcoming, inhabited by the noxious and entitled. Though she's definitely not poor, Martin's also not on the level of her new neighbors, who vacation in Aspen for every winter break and think nothing of shelling out $25,000 on kids' finger paintings at a school function. In this memoir, which has been the subject of controversy, Martin approaches her new environs anthropologically, studying the mean mommies and their hierarchies as they relate to each other (silently and intensely at their beloved Physique 57 classes, in which their determination to get cut and look ever younger is palpable) and outsiders like Martin (with hostility, the cut direct, and sometimes outright aggression). However, when she suffers an unexpected tragedy, she receives nothing but kindness from some of the women and gains perspective on what is frivolous and what is truly meaningful. The Midwest-raised Martin is easy for readers to sympathize with as she attempts to find new friends while old ones drift away, and hopes to not be treated as a playground pariah while securing playdates for her son. It's hard, though, to care about her neighbors-and even about Martin when she finds herself coveting an $8,000 Berkin bag in order to show dominance within the pack. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Martin and her husband are moving from downtown to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in search of a more kid-friendly atmosphere for their son. The neighborhood's excellent schools, proximity to Central Park, and abundance of strollers make it the obvious choice for a small family not ready to leave the island. After their move, however, Martin starts to observe some of the same dominant/submissive behaviors, mating rituals, and rites of passage that she witnessed while studying primatology at Yale University. A Jane -Goodall wielding an American Express Black Card, the author leads readers through the hierarchical benchmarks of Upper East Side mothers. VERDICT This anthropological journey into the wilds of New York City's most exclusive zip code could have easily devolved into condescension, but instead it proves that mothers everywhere want the same thing: health and happiness for their progeny. [See Memoir, 4/15/15; ow.ly/MBDf6.]-ES © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Primates of Park Avenue CHAPTER ONE Comme Il Faut Fieldnotes Environment and ecology The island is a geographically, culturally, and politically isolated landmass roughly seven times longer than it is wide. The climate is temperate, with relatively harsh winters and extremely hot and humid summers that, in recent years, approximate tropical conditions due in part to two centuries of intensive land clearing and industrial practices. The island's longitude is 40°43'42" N, and its latitude is 73°59'39" W. Island dwellers live in a state of ecological release--resources such as food and water are abundant and easily procured; disease is minimal; there is no predation. Living in a niche characterized by literally unprecedented abundance, untethered from hardship, the wealthiest islanders are able to invest heavily in each and every offspring and to invent elaborate and complex social codes and rites, the observance of which are time-, labor-, and resource-intensive. In spite of the extraordinary abundance of food, water, and other resources island-wide, there is persistent and marked poverty in some areas. The isolation, extreme population density, and vast discrepancies in wealth, as well as traditionally gender-scripted roles and behaviors around child rearing and work, may inform and in part account for many of the strange-seeming behaviors of the wealthiest island dwellers, discussed in the following pages. Island dwellings The island's inhabitants are primarily vertical dwellers, making their homes directly on top of one another in structures of finely ground stone. Living in these "vertical villages" allows inhabitants to maximize physical space, a precious commodity in short supply on their tiny and remarkably densely populated island. In some locations, particularly where the wealthiest islanders reside, these vertical villages are notably restrictive, with a secretive "council of elders" presiding over who will and will not be allowed to live there. Scouting out a dwelling is one of the most labor-intensive practices of the female members of the tribe I studied--most often the task is undertaken by primaparas. Almost without exception, "dwelling shamans" guide these women in their quests for homes--which are also quests for identity. The shamans offer specialized knowledge, counsel, and emotional support throughout this costly, protracted, and painstaking initiation process. Geographical origins of islanders Island dwellers have heterogeneous geographical origins. Many dispersed at sexual maturity from their natal groups in distant, smaller, and even rural villages, immigrating to the island for enhanced professional, sexual, and marital prospects. Other island dwellers are indigenous; their status is higher than that of the nonautochthonous residents, particularly if they were raised in certain corners of the island or attended particular "learning huts" while growing up there. Beliefs of and about islanders Whether they are autochthonous or émigrés, island dwellers are believed by outsiders, many visitors, and their countrymen to harbor haughty attitudes about themselves and their island. They are known throughout the land for their brusqueness; intellectual gifts; dazzling adornment practices; and acumen in barter, trade, and negotiation. Increasingly, their trade is in invisible ideas and abstractions, enhancing the sense that they have privileged knowledge and even "magical" powers. The journeys and tribulations of those who move to the island and struggle to succeed there are the stuff of legend, literally--there exists a long oral and written tradition about the supposedly indomitable and unique spirit of people who are able to "make it there." Once they have established themselves on the island, it is said, they can "make it anywhere." Resource acquisition and distribution On the whole, the island dwellers are the richest in the entire nation, living untethered from the environmental constraints that have such a profound impact on life-history courses in other habitats worldwide. Obtaining adequate calories for themselves and their children, the main ecological challenge to parents worldwide and throughout our evolutionary prehistory, is a simple given for wealthy island dwellers. However, as in many industrial and postindustrial societies, fathers of the very traditionally gender-scripted tribe I studied tend to focus on the job of provisioning their wives and families with less-tangible resources, including financial, social, and cultural capital. While many island-dwelling females work outside the home, during the childbearing and child-rearing years, many wealthy female islanders believe it is their "role" to remain home with their children, where they are often assisted by alloparents--individuals other than parents who take on parental roles. They call these alloparents "housekeepers," "nannies," and "caregivers." Island organization The island is organized, in the minds of island dwellers, into four quadrants: Up, Down, Right, and Left. The "Up" and "Down" areas are believed to be markedly distinct--with Up being preferable for raising children and Down being considered primarily a place for pre-reproductives, cultural "outsiders," feasting, and ecstatic nighttime rites. Islanders further divide their island into left and right hemispheres. "Left" and "Right," like "Up" and "Down," are believed to have different--even polar opposite--characteristics. Left is believed to be more casual and progressive, in contrast to Right's perceived formality and conservatism. Excerpted from Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir by Wednesday Martin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.