The Stager

This attempt by Coll (Acceptance) to satirize life in the affluent suburbs of Washington, D.C., only partially succeeds. The narrative works best when the point of view belongs to Lars Jorgenson, a former tennis star now overweight and overmedicated; his prepubescent daughter, Elsa; and his family’s misanthropic missing rabbit, Dominique. Unfortunately, too much space is devoted to Eve, who was once besties with Lars’s cheating wife, Bella. Now she has been hired to “stage,” or redecorate, the Jorgenson house for a quick sale so the family can move to London, where Bella’s new high-powered job as the public face for a multinational corporation and her former lover both await. Coll uses Elsa’s youthful, naïve voice to quirkily comic effect. She mines a darker brand of humor from Lars’s drugged-out perspective, in which he believes he has become omniscient and can hold conversations with the snarky Dominique, in scenes reminiscent of TV’s Wilfred. The book’s more wide-ranging satire on the 1% (which includes grace notes such as a high-end, planned hippie commune called the Unfurlings), however, goes underdeveloped thanks to the excessive time spent on Bella and Eve’s backstory. [em]Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (July) [/em]