Sex and Shopping: Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl

That demure, well-behaved and virginal Judy Tarcher, a Wellesley graduate from a wealthy and proper Jewish family who ultimately became Judith Krantz, author of such steamy, sex-drenched bestsellers as Scruples, Princess Daisy and Mistral's Daughter, seems to surprise even Krantz herself. Nevertheless, here Krantz gleefully charts her transformation from one of the most studious and least popular girls at Manhattan's exclusive Birch Wathen School to one of the publishing industry's most f ted stars. The story of the intervening years is both entertaining and instructive. Nearly 50 when she embarked on her authorial career, Krantz (now 70) maintains that her early life--particularly a post-college year in Paris, during which she briefly lived in an abandoned brothel, and her connections, via her socially prominent parents and her TV-producer husband, to many real-life equivalents of her glamorous jet-set characters--provided rich material for her fiction, and she proves this point by providing blow-by-blow accounts of how various personal experiences and encounters worked their way into her novels. She also notes that, for her, autobiography is a kind of therapy, allowing her to analyze and come to terms with her often-fraught relationship with her emotionally distant parents and to get to the roots of various personal neuroses and anxieties. Like her novels, then, this is a story of a life of wealth and privilege also laced with heartache. But, narrated in a chatty, down-to-earth voice, it's also a stylish, fun read with an appealing blend of entertaining froth and savvy insight. 24 pages of photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (May)