The Wentworths

By Katie Arnoldi

The extraordinary national bestseller, finally in paperback

Katie Arnoldi's critically acclaimed debut novel Chemical Pink launched her onto the bestseller lists and so burrowed itself into the public's consciousness that its title was the answer to a Double Jeopardy! question. Now, seven years later, her second novel, The Wentworths, gives her readers a fascinating, erotic, dark, and savagely funny page-turner that will both thrill her fans and appeal to new readers of all stripes.

Arnoldi's searing portrait of a wealthy Westside, Los Angeles family, is a true binge read-boldly dramatizing the disfunctionality of the modern American family as it examines how people get so screwed up. Comic and horrifying, sadistic and hilarious, tragic and funny all at the same time, The Wentworths is a shocking, yet redemptive tale that will have fans cheering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Mar 31, 2009
• ISBN: 9781590206300

Reviews for The Wentworths

[yourotherleft_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

With The Wentworths Katie Arnoldi has penned a vicious satire of the upper class. Dysfunctional barely begins to describe the Wentworth family. August, the patriarch, has barely been faithful to his wife for a moment in their lengthy marriage. Judith, however, is so caught up with the myriad of beautiful things and the power over a small army of maids she has accumulated as a result of her marriage to August that she couldn't care less where August chooses to spend his time. Their three children are even more twisted than their parents. Conrad is an expensive lawyer whose wildly sadistic side is revealed early in his life. Their one daughter, Becky, after being stung by a comment made by her father during her youth is obsessed with controlling her weight leaving little time for her meek husband, Paul, and her two children Monica (a drug addict) and Joey (a shameless kleptomaniac). Finally, there is gay Norman, who by his mid-thirties has failed to so much as move from his parents' guest house but, for the most part, is too stoned to care. Throughout the novel, Arnoldi makes this elite family downright laughable by revealing their problems and insecurities while at the same time using everyday occurrences to showcase their ridiculous responses to the mundane. Judith's quest to recover a set of missing sugar tongs spotlights the Wenthworths' pure inanity. She grills each family member about the whereabouts of the tongs while the many real problems this family faces have a blind eye turned to them. Arnoldi brilliantly renders this family's inability to deal with its many problems, and even more so, its unwillingness to even admit that there are problems at all. Though it seems that Arnoldi succeeds admirably in what I imagine to be her quest to satirize the type of people who quite literally have more money than they know what to do with, this book was nonetheless a difficult read. Short, sometimes wittily named chapters contain the astonishing, twisted, and often very explicit foibles of the family members. While I don't consider myself to be too faint of heart, I found myself agape at many of the events taking place in the pages of this book. As a result, I found The Wentworths to be all too easy to put down making a lengthy read out of a very short book. While I can appreciate Arnoldi's message, such as it is, her means of revealing it in this novel was almost more than I could take.

[southerngirlreads · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

August Wentworth: The patriarch, who drinks, cheats on his wife and thinks all women are after him, even at his age.Judith Wentworth: The matriarch who cares more about appearances than her family’s needs.Conrad Wentworth: The eldest son and cruel womanizer.Rebecca Wentworth-Jones: The uptight daughter who needs pills just to get through the day.Norman Wentworth: The homosexual, cross-dressing youngest son who hates his family for their lack of acceptance.Paul Jones: The attention-starved son-in-law who is afraid to speak up.Monica: The teenage, drug using granddaughter who thinks she’s smarter than everyone.Little Joey: The grandson who is a kleptomaniac and doesn’t’ see anything wrong with it.You’ve just met the Wentworths. A rich, spoiled, southern California family as dysfunctional as they come.Katie Arnoldi’s THE WENTWORTHS is a bold, dark, erotic story of an elite rich family. Some have called it a satire, but that would mean that it was funny or makes fun of the people or their lives. It did do that to an extent, but as I read on I found it more disturbing than anything. I'm no prude and I do like dark comedy, but I would be more likely to label it sadistic. There were a few funny lines early on, but not enough to label it humorous, in my opinion. The story is told in the first person by each member of the family, along with a few outsiders. It’s easy to tell whose perspective you’re reading by the varying personalities and the quirky titles of each chapter. The chapters are very short, sometimes only a page, which gives the book a choppy feel. It’s not a novel that flows with dialogue. Basically, the story is about a woman who first tries to worm her way into the family with no luck then tries to teach Conrad a lesson. It’s also about how this family reacts to even the most mundane happenings, such as Judith’s obsession with finding missing silver tongs from a tea set.To be honest, this book was just ok for me. After I finished it, there just wasn’t much I was left with. And nothing really started to happen until the last 50 or so pages. A lot of time was spent explaining the personalities of the characters and how, in they’re own words, they felt about each other.I understand Ms. Arnoldi’s first novel, CHEMICAL PINK was a surprise cult hit and I’ve read there’s talk of a screenplay. I’m sure there will be a similar following for this latest release. It’s not a book for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for bold, explicit, R-rated fiction, this is the book for you.