Book Blog Tour-Prospect Park West by Amy Sohn

Synopsis:
In PROSPECT PARK WEST (now in trade paperback), Amy Sohn, the New York Times bestselling author of My Old Man and Run Catch Kiss turns her satirical eye to the class—read: caste—system among that strange new species, the Brooklyn [Breeder] Bourgeois. Think the SEX & THE CITY girls go to the Park Slope Food Co-op.

Brooklyn’s famed Park Slope neighborhood has it all: sprawling, majestic Prospect Park; acclaimed public schools; historic brownstones; and progressive values. Among bohemian bourgeois breeders, claiming a stake in Park Slope has become a competitive sport. In the park, at the coffee shops, and the playgrounds of the neighborhood, four women’s lives come together during one long, hot Brooklyn summer. Melora Leigh, a two-time Oscar-winning actress, frustrated with her career and the pressures of raising her adoptive toddler, feels the seductive pull of kleptomania; Rebecca Rose, missing the robust sex life of her pre-motherhood days, begins a dangerous flirtation with a handsome neighborhood celebrity; Lizzie O’Donnell, a former lesbian (or “hasbian”), wonders why she is still drawn to women in spite of her sexy husband and adorable child; and Karen Bryan Shapiro finds herself split between two powerful obsessions: her four-year-old son’s well-being, and snagging the ultimate three-bedroom apartment in a well-maintained, P.S. 321-zoned co-op building. As the women’s paths intertwine (and sometimes collide), each must struggle to keep her man, her sanity … and her play dates.

From the perennially hot author and columnist Amy Sohn comes a smart, sexy, satirical peek into the bedrooms and hearts of Prospect Park West.


About the Author:
In 1995 Amy was graduated from Brown University, with Honors and magna cum laude, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society. In 1996 she launched an autobiographical dating diary, “Female Trouble,” in New York Press, which elicited loads of bitter invective from readers and shamed her parents at cocktail parties. She followed her stint at New York Press with a column at the New York Post called “Amy Sohn on THERsdays” where she enraged management by comparing Mayor Giuliani to Hitler and writing an expose on the Yankees locker room. Her first novel, Run Catch Kiss, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1999. In 2000, Amy co-created, wrote and starred in a television show for Oxygen’s “X Chromosome” animated series entitled “Avenue Amy.” In August 2001 Amy landed at New York magazine, where she was a contributing editor for six years. At New York, her columns mirrored the trajectory of her life, from “Naked City” to “Mating” to “Breeding,” and then the columns stopped, as her life must have seemed to, although it did not.

In September 2004 her second novel, My Old Man, was published by Simon & Schuster. Prospect Park West, Run Catch Kiss and My Old Man have been or will be translated into ten languages.

In 2002 Amy wrote the bestselling companion guide to television’s “Sex and the City,” Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell (Pocket Books), which made her a New York Times bestselling author. In 2005 she wrote the companion guide to television’s “Desperate Housewives,” Desperate Housewives: Behind Closed Doors.

In 2008 she wrote the tie-in guide Sex and the City: The Movie, which was also a New York Times bestseller.

Amy has written two films, a Gen X Big Chill called Spin the Bottle, and a Gen X horror film called Pagans, which has been in post-production for six years but deserves to be released. She has also written television pilots for HBO, ABC, Fox, Lifetime and other networks.

She grew up in Brooklyn, where she still lives today. She has a brother, five years younger. She voted for Barack Obama and raised money for him. She thinks about Michelle’s relaxer. She wishes she could perform in the East Room someday. Her favorite writers are Laurie Colwin, Hilma Wolitzer, Charles Bukowski, Nathanael West, Susan Minot, Mary Gaitskill, and Bruce Jay Friedman. Her favorite films include Gregory’s Girl, The Landlord, and Together. She had her seventh birthday party at Kramer versus Kramer but not all the children were permitted by their parents to come. As a child she was taken to the films Heartland, Splash, Heart Like a Wheel, The Magical Mystery Tour, and Mr. Hulot’s Holiday and is glad about it. She thinks Wainwright elevates Apatow and not the other way around. She has strong biceps but weak abs. She is aware that her inspiration for this list was the Kevin Costner speech in Bull Durham. She has had sexual fantasies about Richard Ford and they were productive. If she could switch careers she would be a Broadway musical theater producer or a sommelier. She dresses to the left. She believes that when it comes to hair highlights, cheap is expensive. Her favorite joke is, “What’s the difference between a Jew and a Gentile? A Gentile leaves without saying goodbye and a Jew says goodbye without leaving.” She also enjoys a very tasteless Katharine Hepburn joke told to her by Jonathan Marc Sherman whose punchline is, “How do you turn it off?” Her favorite candy is York Peppermint Patties and she always has a knot in the same section of her hair when she wakes up. Her daughter’s hair knots in the same place too.