A forthcoming debut novel from an author with roots on the Upper East Side uses the neighborhood in the 1980s as the setting for mischief and possibly mayhem. Set on the UES during the summer of ’86, Cynthia Weiner’s A Gorgeous Excitement will be out January 21, 2025.
Advertisement
Billed by Penguin Random House–which is publishing the novel under its Crown imprint–as “A dazzling novel about one young woman’s summer of infinite possibility…,” the novel centers on Nina Jacobs, a teen who’s just finished high school and is determined to lose her virginity before beginning college. In this quest, she spends her summer frequenting “Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates.” It is there that Nina meets Gardner Reed, whom she pursues–alongside cocaine and other indulgences. The novel promises other elements of danger, too.
ALSO READ: Here’s When the Upper East Side Became Cool
Publisher’s Weekly says the story is “a lush and thrilling study of preppy teenagers in 1986 New York City, inspired by the real-life slaying of an 18-year-old woman who was found dead in Central Park.” The review refers to the notorious “Preppy Killer,” Robert Chambers, who was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the strangling death of Jennifer Levin. Chambers had met her at Dorrian’s Red Hand (300 East 84th St) the evening before her body was found in Central Park.
The author’s inspiration comes from her own upbringing on the Upper East Side, as her website states that she had a personal connection to the famous slaying, “having spent many nights drinking with the real-life Preppy Killer and his friends at Dorrian’s (the model for Flanagan’s bar) that summer.”
ALSO READ: The Rise and Fall of Ladies’ Nights on the Upper East Side
Advertisement
Weiner told East Side Feed that she “grew up on 77th Street (on Lexington, and then on Park) and went to school on 84th and East End” at The Chapin School, graduating in 1984. She went on to earn a B.A. from Duke and an M.F.A. from Brown University, both in Creative Writing. She’s now the assistant director of The Writer’s Studio and has taught creative writing at both Pace and Fordham. Her short stories have won multiple accolades and she has been published in multiple literary journals, including Ploughshares. Weiner now resides in the Hudson Valley.
Cynthia Weiner author headshot. Photo by Nina Subin.
A Gorgeous Excitement will be available January 21 at major booksellers. Cynthia Weiner will be doing a local reading at Corner Bookstore (coincidentally around the corner from where Robert Chambers lived!) at 1313 Madison Ave, on January 23 from 6-7:30 p.m. Learn more at Weiner’s website and Instagram and at Penguin Random House.
Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
