The Innocents, By Francesca Segal
A very American comedy of manners – reborn in NW11
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.In a humorous re-working of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, the Costa Prize-winning debut novelist, Francesca Segal substitutes 1870s New York with present-day north-west London. It takes chutzpah to appropriate such a well-loved classic, but Segal parallels the two convention-bound worlds with aplomb.
Segal's version sees Wharton's leading man, Newland Archer, re-cast as Adam Newman, a young Jewish lawyer on the cusp of marriage. His fiancée, Rachel Gilbert, is the perfect wife to be – cute, curvy and sure of her place in the world. Even more thrilled by the couple's announcement are Rachel's parents, Jaffa and Lawrence, who have been waiting ten years to call the caterers.
Get a discount on this book at the Independent online bookshop
But, as in Wharton's novel, this promising alliance is set to falter. Back in town after a long sojourn in New York comes Rachel's first cousin, Ellie Schneider. The Countess Olenska of the piece, Ellie embodies everything that Rachel is not. Rumoured to have starred in a porn video, she soon becomes the hot topic of speculation among Adam's contemporaries, arriving at synagogue "exposing skin from clavicle to navel".
As Adam wakes up to the notion that there might be a world outside NW11, Segal draws us ever closer to its cosy bosom. It's a postcode that vibrates to the swish of cling-film as matriarchs wrap and re-wrap trays of Austrian strudels, and where young women combine the brains of a clinical oncologist with the heart of a "shtetl daughter".
Not that history doesn't cast its shadows. On Rachel's grandmother's coffee table a long boat of dark coconut wood sets "permanent sail" against future catastrophe.
Throughout this classily composed comedy of manners, Segal mirrors the constrained social code of Wharton's Fifth Avenue. As we watch Adam face a series of increasingly exquisite dilemmas we start to nurse the forlorn hope that this compliant son might yet go rogue and smash up his very nearly happy life. But who are we kidding? When this tightly-knit community closes ranks, there is no escape.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments