Praise for Three-Martini Lunch
“Think of it as the publishing industry’s take on Mad Men: a gripping fictional dispatch from the world of talented writers and editors with big dreams, secrets, and booze bills.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Packed with narrative surprises… Rindell keeps the suspense strong as we wonder if Eden and Cliff and Miles are fated for success or doomed to failure.”—CT Post
“A rollicking period piece that builds to a magnificent crescendo. With an excellent ear for the patter and cadence of the time, Rindell expertly brings a bygone era to life, though the struggles of her trio feel anything but dated. While blackmail and backstabbing keep things suitably scandalous, Rindell also explores deeper issues of race, sexuality, class and gender in ways that feel vital and timely. The end result is a moving novel that proves provocative in more ways than one.”—BookPage
“Sprawling across more than 500 pages, the new novel Three-Martini Lunch captures the excesses as well as the inhibitions of New York City in 1958, from the eponymous meals of the big Manhattan publishing houses, to wild drinking-and-drug bouts in Greenwich Village, to the lingering paranoia of McCarthyism, to the casual racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-Semitism among the professional class.”—New York Journal of Books
“Compulsively readable melodrama about life in the Manhattan publishing world of the 1950s… [Rindell] does it with such high style and draped in such alluring, gin-soaked detail that we overcome our critical selves and root like hell for Eden to become an editor, for Miles to accept his love for Joey, and for Cliff to quit being a jerk.”—Booklist
“[Three-Martini Lunch] offers a captivating look into the vibrancy of mid-20th-century New York City through the eyes of three flawed and therefore, fascinating young characters.”—Library Journal
“With its vivid historical setting and the narrators’ distinct voices, this ambitious novel is both an homage to the beatnik generation and its literature, as well as an evocative story of the price one pays for going after one’s dreams.”—Publishers Weekly
“Suzanne Rindell’s latest novel is a riveting account of three young adults struggling to define themselves against issues of family, race, and sexual identity in the intolerant world of the ’50s. Three-Martini Lunch is a gripping study of the ways in which people betray others and themselves in an effort to carve out places for themselves in a competitive and unforgiving world.”—Sara Gruen, New York Times-bestselling author of Water for Elephants and At the Water’s Edge
“Set in New York City’s Beat Generation, a skillfully crafted story of three young professionals trying to make it big in publishing: This is Three-Martini Lunch. Their choices and sacrifices ripple out from the pages and shake our hearts. A gripping read.”—Sarah McCoy, New York Times-bestselling author of The Mapmaker’s Children
“Three-Martini Lunch does for publishing what Mad Men did for advertising. It takes you back in time and then proceeds to etch in a whole world, stroke by stroke. This fast-moving novel is rich with incident and wonderfully conflicted characters.”—James Magnuson, author of Famous Writers I Have Known
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