The Hazards of Good Breeding (30 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
OWE HEARTFELT THANKS
to Eric Simonoff for his guidance and wisdom, and to Jill Bialosky for her capable direction and understanding. To Bill Buford for his support and Cressida Leyshon for her kindness and advocacy, to Binnie Kirshenbaum and Helen Schulman for their generous encouragement and advice, to Karen Schwartz, Gordon Haber, and Rebecca Donner for their readings and moral support, and to Verlyn Klinkenborg for getting me started on the right foot.

I am also deeply grateful to my father and mother for their values and their belief in my imagination, to my whole family for their enthusiasm and encouragement, and to my husband for his gift of insight, his sense of humor, and his faith in my work. And I am forever indebted to my friends, especially the girls of Lowell House, for sharing their stories and their jokes, and their unfailing recognition of the meaningful and the absurd.

MORE PRAISE FOR
THE HAZARDS OF GOOD BREEDING

“Reading Jessica Shattuck's pitch-perfect novel is like spying on the children and grandchildren of John Cheever's Wapshots.”

—Mark Rozzo,
Los Angeles Times

“A witty and promising first novel. . . . [Shattuck's] descriptive brio can leave the reader punchy with surprise and admiration.”

—Jennifer Egan,
New York Times Book Review

“[A] stunning debut novel, Cambridge native Shattuck renders the sad, comic decline of the Dunlap family, mirroring the demise of the Boston Brahmins themselves.”

—Greg Lalas,
Boston Magazine

“[With a] keen understanding of human nature and frailty [Shattuck] often displays a magnetic use of detail that not only makes her scenes come visually alive but also illuminates character.”

—David Wiegand,
San Francisco Chronicle

“
The Hazards of Good Breeding
showcases Shattuck's sophisticated eye and her talent for turning arch observation into words.”

—Dan Santow,
Chicago Tribune

“Shattuck is an observant and graceful writer, and contrives elegant and touching scenes.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Quiet . . . funny and moving.”

—Kristine Huntley,
Booklist

“[Shattuck] has a real gift for crafting beautiful small moments.”

—Leah Greenblatt,
Seattle Weekly

“[
The Hazards of Good Breeding
] is at once a funny send-up of blue bloods in debauched decline and a profoundly compassionate contemplation of the burdens of inheritance.”

—Donna Seaman,
Ruminator Review

“Shattuck's prose is graceful and unforced, full of unexpected and casually tossed insights, and, like Lorrie Moore, her humor acts both as scourge and salve, to skewer and to deflect.”

—Nicola Smith,
Valley News

“A loopy, tightly wound WASP family in Concord, Massachusetts, unravels with the introduction of alien elements in a generously portrayed and richly appointed debut. . . . Shattuck has done wonders bringing to luminous life her patriotic diorama.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Wickedly funny.”

—
New York Observer

“An excellent novel. . . . The author avoids contrivance in presenting sensitive issues experienced by totally credible, thoughtful people and comes up with a new understanding of American life every bit as affecting as Richard Yates's magnificent
Revolutionary Road
.”

—Ann Beattie

“Jessica Shattuck has written a thoughtful and elegant first novel, full of insight and humor. It is set in a rarefied world, one that she knows intimately and reveals perceptively; one which, for all its flaws and eccentricities, she loves.”

—Roxana Robinson

“With great skill and wisdom Jessica Shattuck weaves an intricate domestic web that highlights the most vulnerable threads in a myriad of relationships: parents, children, friends, and lovers.
The Hazards of Good Breeding
is all that the title promises and more. It is a terrific debut by a talented writer.”

—Jill McCorkle

“With her sharp eye for detail and witty, winning prose, Jessica Shattuck takes the familiar story of a high-WASP family's demise and turns it on its head. There are at least fifteen certifiable pleasures in every paragraph of this charming, intelligent, and exceedingly well-crafted debut.”

—Helen Shulman

Copyright

Copyright © 2003 by Jessica Shattuck

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First published as a Norton paperback 2004

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Manufacturing by Quebecor World, Fairfield

Book design by Mary A. Wirth

Production manager: Amanda Morrison

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Shattuck, Jessica.

The hazards of good breeding / by Jessica Shattuck.-- 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-393-05132-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-393-34770-8 (e-book)

1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Children of divorced parents—Fiction.

3. Women college graduates—Fiction. 4. Parent and adult

child—Fiction. 5. Upper class families—Fiction. 6. Boston

(Mass.)—Fiction. 7. Housekeepers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3619.H357 H39 2003

813'.6—dc21

2002014203

ISBN 0-393-32483-4 pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT