Loving Edith

Like Carolyn See and Alice Hoffman, Tannen (Easy Keeper) adds sparkle and the magic of coincidence to ordinary people's lives. Here she delivers a cosmopolitan novel that is both literate and romantic, an alloy of intellect and instinct. Edith Seagrace, a 21-year-old college student from upstate New York, chooses to spend a summer in Manhattan, away from her adoptive parents. With the help of her grandfather and, unbeknownst to her, her birth mother, Lulu, Edith finds an apartment in trendy TriBeCa and lands a summer internship at sophisticated UBU magazine-whose editor, Martin, may be her biological father. Unaware that Lulu and UBU figure in her history, Edith views all this as simply good luck. She's innocently amazed at how well Martin and the magazine's seasoned staff treat her, and she dismisses Lulu-a flighty artist who subsists on the kindness of wealthy friends (and occasionally on the tastier contents of garbage cans)-as a vulgarian. Because of her ignorance, Edith unwittingly breaks hearts as her youth and potential awaken in her admirers-who have long been lonely and self-absorbed-a powerful parental pride tinged with longing. People view her presence alone as a gift. While Tannen advances this sentimental notion, she invests each scene with classic New York glamour as she knits uptown and downtown, the publishing and art worlds, highbrow and lowbrow into one captivating read. (May)