GILDED AGE

A modern retelling of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth set in Cleveland, it is the story of a young woman who returns to her roots to find a rich husband after her marriage ends in scandal in New York.

Following the plot of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth with a new millennium Ellie Hart at its center, Claire McMillan's debut novel is set amid the dwindling world of the great-great grandchildren of Cleveland's industrialists.

In Shaker Heights, the house-proud throw dinner parties with staff on hand, though extravagance is frowned on so Triscuits are the only hors d'oeuvres on offer. In Gates Mills, a young wife can tastefully wear diamonds with her own insurance rider as long as they were once Granny's. In Hunting Valley, a talent for spotting treasure at estate sales means a new arrival can pass-off bargains as heirlooms. In Tremont, the local fashion designer air kisses his clients with a brush of his viper-bite lip piercings. In the country clubs, the gossips are black-belt certified. At a downtown men's club, a member does a tequila body shot off his date in a darkened squash court and rumors begin. Meeting for a drink at a downtown hotel, if the right people are there to see it, becomes whispers of going upstairs for an afternoon tryst. It's an insular world where, even in the new millennium, a woman's sexual reputation matters and so does her family name.

Prodigal Ellie Hart, a third-wave feminist, aging, Gen-X, party girl, returns to this world to reinvent herself after divorce and thirty days in Sierra Tucson rehab. Amid gossip and scandal Ellie contends with the belief that a woman needs a husband to be socially complete in Cleveland, which is not so unchanged since Edith Wharton wrote The House of Mirth about New York in 1905.

Claire McMillan grew up on Pasadena, California (which she describes as Shaker Heights with palm trees). She holds a BA in journalism and political science from University of Oregon, and a JD from University of California, Hastings College of Law, and a an MFA in fiction from Bennington (where her mentors were Martha Cooley, Sheila Kohler and Alice Mattison). She worked at the Pasadena Star News, writing an opinion column from the gen X perspective on political issues; she practiced corporate litigation in San Francisco, focusing on antitrust law; and she worked for Senator Mark Hatfield in D.C. focusing on refugee issues. Claire and her husband lived in Delhi, India for six months before moving to Cleveland in 2006 when he inherited his family's farm, which is the inspiration for Cinco Quincy's farm in the book.