Smart Hearts in the City - Hardcover

Solomon, Barbara Probst

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151831572 ISBN 13: 9780151831579

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1992

Synopsis

Widowed at a young age, New York avant-garde jet-setter Katy Becker begins to lose money at an alarming rate while suing her husband's brother for embezzling money that belongs to her. By the author of The Beat of Life.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Probst Solomon, a member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty, received the United Nations/Women Together Award this past May at the United Nations. The honor seeks to pay tribute to eight women who "share a dedication to stand out in their individual activities, a commitment to their work, and a devotion to making the world a better place. Their efforts have made them symbols, icons and examples to the women of this century, giving hope for the future and creating a legacy for the next generations." Joining Solomon in receiving this year's award were: Artist Louise Bourgeois, Spanish television journalist Rosa Maria Calaf, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Spanish economist Isabel Estapé, theatrical and television producer Francine LeFrak, Wangari Maathal the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize, and Vasundhara Raje, the first woman Chief Minister of the State of Rajastan.

prize-winning Arriving Where We Started, numerous articles, and a memoir documentary titled "When the War Was Over," which won the Lancelot Law Whyte award of Boston University for its contribution to modern culture. She is the United States cultural correspondent of El Pais and currently the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University Menendez y Pelayo in Spain. In addition, Solomon is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the literary journal The Reading Room, which she started in 2002 with the founding board of Larry Rivers, Donald Maggin, Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow. In 2005 she became the first North American and second woman to receive premio Antonio de Sancha, given annually by the Association of Madrid Publishers and Editors to a person distinguished for upholding universal cultural and literary values.

Born in New York City, Solomon graduated from The Dalton School, studied at the Sorbonne and received a B.S. from Columbia University's School of General Studies. Her husband (deceased) was the law professor Harold Solomon. Her daughter Carla Solomon Magliocco, (a graduate of Yale), is a member of the Board of New York University Medical Center and her daughter Maria Solomon, (a graduate of Sarah Lawrence), is a clinical social worker at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic.

From Publishers Weekly

Solomon, a journalist and memoirist who wrote an earlier novel about New York, The Beat of Life , has penned a partly nostalgic, partly despairing book in which the city is an important character of sorts. Katy Becker, a feisty, attractive Jewish woman in passionate middle age, is involved in a lawsuit against her brother-in-law; she believes he is cheating her out of a share of the family estate. Much of the book is made up of Katy's reminiscences: she recalls her early years living on the edge of Harlem, her youthful fling with an ambitious young black man now prospering in California, and her wonderful summers spent at the splendid family estate on Long Island Sound. These scenes, some of them strikingly original in their evocation of class relationships, are interwoven with events from the present: the dog-eat-dog worlds of contemporary New York law and finance, a rather somber romance with a tough-guy millionaire whose boat is a showy extension of himself. The mix doesn't always work, and there are too many incidental and rather unimportant characters to easily keep track of. But Katy's robust, salty personality, prone to sentiment but never overwhelmed by it, is pleasing, and the rather glib happy ending seems well deserved. A cut above the usual genre of Jewish family sagas.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0151831572
• ISBN 13: 9780151831579
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224