Emma's Table: A Novel
By (Author) Philip Galanes
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
HarperCollins
1st August 2009
United States
General
Fiction
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general
FIC
Paperback
304
Width 134mm, Height 202mm, Spine 17mm
220g
From the moment Emma Sutton walks into the FitzCoopers auction house, the disgraced media darling knows exactly what she wants: an antique dining table. What she gets is a chance to set things right.
Fresh from a yearlong stretch in prison, Emma finds her life just as she left itfilled with glittering business successes, bruising personal defeats, rolling television cameras, and awkward Sunday dinners at home. She needs a clean slatea second chance that might be provided by two unlikely saviors: Benjamin Blackman, a terminally charming social worker and Emma's part-time assistant, and one of Benjamin's most heartbreaking wards, an overweight little girl from Queens named Gracie.
"Delicious.... [A] touchingly bittersweet comedy of modern urban existence.... Anyone who can build nail-biting suspense out of a Sunday dinner gone horribly wrong is deserving of praise." -- Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
"Sophisticated, witty, and fun, Emma's Table had me hooked from the first page, and smiling through the very last. Philip Galanes serves up a pitch-perfect comedy of manners with a deft and elegant touch." -- Holly Peterson, author of The Manny
"Emma's Table is a charming urban fairy tale about characters who actually learn from their mistakes. Philip Galanes has written a sweet, sly comedy of manners with an oddly familiar and slightly notorious figure at its center." -- Tom Perrotta, author of The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children
"This summer's delicious read." -- Vogue
"Emma's Table is a marvel: a whip-smart juggling act, as light as meringue, with a perfectly tender heart." -- Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
"[Galanes has a] gift for telling detail, rueful but compassionate insight and effortless imagery." -- Kirkus Reviews
"In other hands, a novel about a fictionalized Martha Stewart would be an occasion for a hatchet job. But Mr. Galanes...has created a heroine not only capable of but also deserving of kindness" -- New York Sun
Philip Galanes is the author of Social Qs, the weekly advice column in the New York Times Sunday Styles section, and an entertainment lawyer in private practice. He is also an awardwinning interior designer of commercial and residential spaces. He divides his time between New York City and East Hampton, New York.