Deception is just another day in the lives of the Upper East Side's elite. At age 33, Pepper Bradford has no career, no passion, and no children. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé, Rick, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life--until a week before the wedding when she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick's obsessed female client. She looks to her older neighbors in the building to help decide whether to stay with Rick, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. Birdie and George's bond frays after George is forced into retirement at sixty-two. And Francis alienates Carol, his wife of fifty years, and everyone else he knows, after being diagnosed with an inoperable heart condition. To her surprise, Pepper's best model for love may be a clandestine gay romance between Caleb and Sergei, a black porter and a Russian doorman. Jonathan Vatner's Carnegie Hill is a belated-coming-of-age novel about sustaining a marriage--and knowing when to walk away. It chronicles the lives of wealthy New Yorkers and the staff who serve them, as they suffer together and rebound, struggle to free themselves from family entanglements, deceive each other out of love and weakness, and fumble their way to honesty.

Deception is just another day in the lives of the Upper East Side's elite. Pepper Bradford has no career, no passion, and no children. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé, Rick, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life. Then, a week before the wedding, she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick's obsessed female client. Pepper looks to her older neighbors for advice, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. -- adapted from jacket