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Nov
12
Book Club Breakdown: Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont
2009 at 8am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
This is part of a monthly-ish feature in which I discuss my book club’s most recent selection.
What it’s about:
A description from the publisher, Algonquin Books:
When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it’s on the condition that she reform her ways. But that’s before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with danger and the thrill of breaking rules, taking risks, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. The problem is, the stakes keep getting higher, and Catherine can neither resist Skye nor stop her from taking down everyone around her.
De Gramont’s chilling novel is a portrait of the seductions of adolescence in all their beauty and terror. Caught in this alluring world, the girls of Esther Percy are optimistic and willful, loving and selfish, daring and cruel—all the while believing they’re utterly indestructible.
Why we chose it:
To be honest, I’m not really sure why we chose it. After choosing our first three selections myself, I basically demanded that someone else in the group start suggesting books on the grounds that my bookstore and blogging connections did not mean I was the only one qualified to pick books for book club. Another member stepped up to the plate saying she’d heard great things about Gossip of the Starlings, so we went with it.
What we liked:
De Gramont seems to have mastered the art of using few words to say a great deal. Her economy with language and the beauty of her writing were, at least for me, the best parts of this book.
Set in swanky boarding schools in the 1980s and populated with spoiled rich kids who do a lot of coke, have a lot of sex, and engage in generally scandalous behavior, Gossip of the Starlings feels like Bret Easton Ellis meets Gossip Girl. The characters are dramatic and worldly and convinced that, at the ripe old age of seventeen, they have seen and done it all; the title refers to Shel Silverstein’s poem “Forgotten Language,” implying a loss of innocence and childish wonder. De Gramont describes Catherine and Skye and their friends with such spot-on details that, by the end of the book, you feel like you would recognize them if you passed them on the street.
The desperate, tenuous, angsty nature of the girls’ relationships with each other, their boyfriends, and families felt familiar and easy to relate to and made the characters seem less untouchable than their upper class boarding school status might imply. When it comes to adolescent experiences and teenage relationships, De Gramont nails it.
Additionally, a member of the book club who grew up middle class but went to an Ivy League college reported that Gossip of the Starlings gave a very accurate depiction of the rich kids she met who had gone to boarding school, were already accustomed to a ridiculous amount of freedom, and were no longer impressed by money and power.
What we didn’t like:
We couldn’t agree on any universal dislikes for this book, but it seemed that each member found one thing or another that rubbed her the wrong way, and that’s bound to happen regardless of what you read. The book certainly isn’t perfect, but it didn’t have any big, glaring problems, and it provided plenty fodder for conversation.
Should your book club read it?
If you’re looking for a unique perspective on teenage relationships and family drama, with an upper-crust WASPy twist, then Gossip of the Starlings is the book for you. Most groups will find more than enough to talk about it within its pages, and if you want to read something about prep school, look no further, especially if you’ve read or considered Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. That book was fun and fluffy. This book is the real deal.
But there is sex and drug use and bad language and political corruption and infidelity, so choose carefully.
What else?
One of the blurbs on the book, taken from People Magazine, states “Grab this one and share it with your teenage daughter,” and it’s not wrong. Gossip of the Starlings would be a great selection for a mother-daughter book club with members of the Gossip Girl generation. It’s easy to imagine how this story would be different in today’s age of social media and instant connectivity, and the conversation is guaranteed to be lively.
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[...] Book Club Breakdown: Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont [...]
I’ve had this on my shelf for eons – thanks for the review! Sounds like I should bump it up the list.
An economy with language in a book set in a boarding school sounds like a great fit for me.
I read this book, and the drug use was what kept it from being a favorite with me. Not because I’m a prude, but because it was just so relentless. Other than that, I loved it.
I am heading into our yearly selection meeting and I am tearing my hair out over what to pitch. Yep, we pick books for the entire year so it’s a huge deal. I try to work it out with some of the other members beforehand so we can be sure that our faves get picked but it doesn’t always work out!
In my book club, I have no clout since I am new (never mind that I’m a blogger). They seem pretty confident to pick their own, and I’m not altogether thrilled with their choices. They seem to choose their book by blowing into B&N an hour before the meeting and blindly picking the prettiest/weirdest cover.
Yeah, I don’t think that’s a great method, Sandy
My group just started in May, and I think they all just assumed that because I have the most exposure/access to the book world, I should pick the books. So I picked the first few, and that was fine, but I tend to like heavy, dark literary fiction (as you know), and they started asking for something lighter….and I was actually glad for that because it meant that someone else would have to make suggestions. But now I’m bummed that it’s a not a book-tatorship because we decided to pick one of the Booker finalists to read during November & December and discuss in January, and I was pulling for THE LITTLE STRANGER, but everyone else wanted WOLF HALL. Oh well. Can’t win ‘em all, right?
I would have never have thought to describe PREP as light and fluffy. The main character definitely wasn’t drugged out and sophisticated like the girls in these books, but she definitely seemed to have some depression issues and was inert to the point of me wanting to beat her. I squirmed through most of that book.
That’s a good point, Nicole. It’s been several years since I read PREP, but I remember it being more of a beach read (squirm factor and all), while this book was heavier.
I’m with Connie above (actually, I read this book because of Connie above) – about halfway through, I just wanted to shout, “I get it, they are ALWAYS doing drugs, let’s move on!” Other than that, I thought it was fantastic.
[...] Em’s Bookshelf: Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont Book Review Book Club Breakdown: Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont [...]