Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin | Summary & Analysis

By IRB Media

Inside this Instaread Summary & Analysis of Primates of Park Avenue

• Summary of book

• Introduction to the Important People in the book

• Analysis of the Themes and Author’s Style

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943427376

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SUMMARY

Wednesday Martin mixes autobiography, anthropology, and satire in Primates of Park Avenue, a close-up look at the rarefied enclave of New York City’s Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world. As Martin chronicles her stressful, and sometimes hilarious, efforts to fit into a world where preschoolers have play dates on private planes, she discovers the neighborhood’s real heart when tragedy strikes her family.

When Martin and her husband started their family they were concerned about the lingering effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks on downtown Manhattan. For this reason, they moved from the trendy, bohemian West Village to the formal, conservative Upper East Side for its excellent schools, proximity to Central Park, and the fact that her husband had many relatives already living there. Martin knew that social customs would be different, but she was stunned by the cultural onslaught she experienced even though the distance between the two neighborhoods was only a few miles.

As soon as she started house hunting, Martin realized how unprepared she was. She dressed too casually and failed to hire a car and driver to shuttle her from listing to listing. As a consequence, real estate agents asked when her boss was coming, as though she could not be a buyer. Only Inga, a high-powered agent her husband had used before, saved her. With Inga’s help, she survived the inquisition of condo associations and co-op boards. After hosting board members in their bedroom, where she was on bed rest due to pregnancy problems, Martin and her husband got the condop, a condo and co-op hybrid, they wanted.

Martin had little time to