One Woman Show

Coulson’s innovative yet disappointing sophomore outing (after Metropolitan Stories) is an experiment in structure that details the life of an American socialite through museum wall labels. Born in 1906, Kitty Whitaker is “all fireworks, [a] golden child.” The novel’s first label belongs to a portrait of Kitty at age five and describes her as a “delirious display of Bernini verve and unrivaled WASP artistry.” In subsequent portrait captions, Kitty is depicted as confident, a little cruel, and ready to take her place as the “centerpiece of a dynastic collection” through her 1926 marriage to the heir of a Pittsburgh mining fortune. Though her wedding initially seems to be the first of many triumphs, Kitty’s life takes an unexpected turn when she’s unable to bear a child and her husband dies in WWII. In the following decades, she remarries, seduces a stepson, and, at age 69, even applies for a job as a docent at the Metropolitan Museum. The prose is often witty and dynamic, but the constrained format limits the story rather than adding to it, and the mildly feminist arc of Kitty’s self-realization feels predictable. Despite its novel structure, this turns out to be an unsatisfying showcase. Agent: Elizabeth Weed, Book Group. (Oct.)