Friends of the Museum

This funny if exhausting comedy of manners from McGowan (Dutchess of Nothing) takes place over 24 hours at a New York City art museum. As the day starts, Diane Schwebe, the museum’s increasingly unhinged director, has her plate full. Not only is the museum’s annual gala that night, but she’s also dealing with reports that pieces in the collection were looted from India, a bunch of recalcitrant potential donors, a case of food poisoning that has put several key employees out of commission, a possible disruption by an embittered artist-prankster, and more. McGowan also delves into side stories involving seven other museum employees, all contending with their own crises, including a terminally ill lawyer, a film curator plagued by serious money problems, and a costume curator dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. Readers will have to be on their toes (and spend some time flipping to the extensive list of characters in the opening pages) to keep track of whose plight is whose, and who has been romantically involved with whom. To her credit, McGowan manages to keep all these narrative plates spinning, though readers may grow weary of the characters mentally cycling through their anxieties again and again. Like a bag of party favors, this has hits and misses. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Apr.)