Book Review: "Park Avenue Summer" by Renée Rosen
Publisher Synopsis: It’s 1965 and Cosmopolitan magazine’s brazen new editor in chief—Helen Gurley Brown—shocks America and saves a dying publication by daring to talk to women about all things off-limits...
New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss, who leaves her small Midwestern town to chase her big-city dreams and unexpectedly lands a job working for the first female editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown.
For Alice, who wants to be a photographer, it seems like the perfect foot in the door, but nothing could have prepared her for the world she enters. Editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, and confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands. When someone tries to pull Alice into a scheme to sabotage her boss, she is more determined than ever to help Helen succeed.
While pressure mounts at the magazine, Alice struggles not to lose sight of her own dreams as she’s swept up into a glamorous world of five-star dinners, lavish parties, and men who are certainly no good. Because if Helen Gurley Brown has taught her anything, it’s that a woman can demand to have it all.
Rating (out of 5): 3.75
Review: I originally wasn’t planning on reviewing this book, but, honestly, it was a super fun read and I enjoyed it. Look, I’m a New York cliché, and this book was also full of New York clichés. What’s not to love about a line like this:
I always knew that someday I would end up in Manhattan. It was innate, like knowing you’re left-handed. I was infatuated with the city, and like most infatuations, my affection was largely the product of my imagination.
(Paging Nora Ephron, amirite?)
Alice has just fulfilled her childhood dream of moving to New York (um, sound familiar?) after her long-term boyfriend ended their engagement. She dreams of becoming a photographer, and through her late mother’s friend, she lands the job a million girls would kill for: as Helen Gurley Brown’s secretary at Cosmopolitan. JK, back when Gurley Brown took the reins at Cosmo, the magazine was completely failing and (according to the book at least), no one at Hearst believed in her vision.
But, Alice is super excited, due to her aforementioned dreams of becoming a photographer, and throws herself into her job 100%. Along the way, she meets a (seemingly?) smarmy Hearst exec; a photographer who volunteers to show her the ropes; and her neighbor, a fellow single woman in the city. Adventures await!
I actually highlighted quite a few passages in this book (the perk of a Kindle book means it’s easy to go back and find them); I thought the novel did an excellent job demonstrating what a turning point 1965 was for women, as showcased in this conversation between Alice and her neighbor Trudy.
“What’s your dream?” I asked, exhaling a plume of smoke.
“Hmmm.” Trudy thought for a moment and shrugged. “I can never remember my dreams.”
“No, I mean the big dreams you have when you’re wide awake. Your passions and goals. Those kinds of dreams.”
She looked bewildered. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Never?” I was incredulous. Practically my whole life had been given over to daydreaming. The here and now didn’t satisfy me. I wanted bigger, better, more.
She exhaled and set her cigarette in the ashtray, waving the smoke away. She was blank and I could see that she’d never really contemplated that before. “Why? What’s yours?”
I held up my camera. “This right here.”
“A photographer?” She wasn’t laughing but she wasn’t buying it either. “How are you going to do that? Her tone said impossible.
Apologies for quoting a passage that long, but the juxtaposition between Alice, who has always dreamed of becoming a photographer and has taken active steps to become one, and Trudy, who later reveals she wants to be an architect but then says, “girls can’t be architects,” was fascinating, and so demonstrative of the challenges in 1965 (that sometimes still continue today!).
Later, Alice attends a Betty Friedan lecture with some of her colleagues, and was struck by her coworker’s observation:
Helen Gurley Brown is still telling us that we need a man to be fulfilled. Betty Friedan is telling us that we already have everything we need within ourselves.
(Hmmm…)
In addition to being seduced by a man whom Gurley Brown calls a “Don Juan” (“every girl has one…Don Juans are unavoidable…every girl has that one man that she just can’t say no to even though she knows he’s no good for her”), Alice has to deal with complicated office politics, figuring out how to have sex with little-to-no strings attached (!!!), and deal with some family drama. But honestly, she has her shit together, and following along on her 1965 adventure was exciting!
If you’re searching for an award-winner, look elsewhere. But the office and sexual politics portrayed were so specific to the moment, and I related to Alice in many ways. It was fun!
TL;DR: An easy, frothy read about a very specific moment in New York’s (and the country’s) history. Despite several cliché lines (that, yes, still resonated with me because I’m a New York cliché), this book was a fascinating look at a time in which women were just beginning to become sexually liberated—and more visible in the workplace. Plus, who doesn’t love some Helen Gurley Brown fanfic?
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