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    Three-Martini Lunch
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    Three-Martini Lunch
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    Three-Martini Lunch
    Audiobook16 hours

    Three-Martini Lunch

    Written by Suzanne Rindell

    Narrated by Will Damron, Rebecca Lowman and JD Jackson

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas--the ideal spot for three ambitious young people to meet. Cliff Nelson, the son of a successful book editor, is convinced he's the next Kerouac, if only his father would notice. Eden Katz dreams of being an editor but is shocked when she encounters roadblocks to that ambition. And Miles Tillman, a talented black writer from Harlem, seeks to learn the truth about his father's past, finding love in the process. Though different from one another, all three share a common goal: to succeed in the competitive and uncompromising world of book publishing. As they reach for what they want, they come to understand what they must sacrifice, conceal, and betray to achieve their goals, learning they must live with the consequences of their choices. In Three-Martini Lunch, Suzanne Rindell has written both a page-turning morality tale and a captivating look at a stylish, demanding era-and a world steeped in tradition that's poised for great upheaval.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9780451484703
    Unavailable
    Three-Martini Lunch
    Author

    Suzanne Rindell

    Suzanne Rindell's The Other Typist has been translated into 15 languages and Keira Knightly is producing and starring in the film adaption. Allison & Busby published Suzanne's second novel, Three-Martini Lunch, to great commercial and critical acclaim. She now divides her time between California and New York.

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    Reviews for Three-Martini Lunch

    4/5

    45 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Terrific audio with three voices for the three main characters!!! I, too, loved her first book and now this second one---she really developed the characters so you felt that you knew them inside and out but with surprises!
    • 4/5
      Fun, though not a whole lot of character development for such a character-driven book. But I enjoyed the portrayal of NY publishing in the late '50s, particularly the curmudgeonly misogynistic editors who call their assistants "girls" and are fueled by their own bluster (anyone wonder why this is funny to me, in a rear view mirror kind of way?). Perfect airplane book, and I don't say that lightly.
    • 5/5
      I think I may have found a new favorite author. I loved Suzanne Rindell's first book, "The Other Typist". As soon as I saw that she had published another novel, I immediately began searching it out. On reading the description of this title, I was sure that it would be a must read for me. I am enamored of NYC, the book world and this era-the 1950's. While this book isn't a Mad Men of the publishing world, it certainly is a well told tale of all aspects of life for different kinds of people during this time. The three main characters are a varied cross section of the diversity of the city, and they each bring different backgrounds and perspectives about life in the 50's. The writing is, again, just spectacular and compelled me through the pages. I didn't so much feel a curiosity as to what was going to happen to these people as a real need to know how things would end up for each of them. Ms. Rindell has the ability to create life from the pages and her characters are both ambitious and yet slightly broken also. This is one of my favorite books of the year thus far.
    • 5/5
      The beginning to this story was a little slow but once I really got into the thick of the story I could hardly put it down. I loved the development of the characters and I enjoyed getting to read about New York in the 50s, as well as the publishing industry in the 50s. I am eager to read Rindell's first book now.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars -This novel started so slow - agonizing slow - and I despised the first of the three protagonists, Cliff! A spoiled son of a rich publishing family but he is the only one who thinks he's the best writer ever! (which didn't change even to the very last page!) So I was thinking I would quit. After all, there are 498 pages! But I kept going. I am glad I did as I really liked Miles, the black Harvard grad, for his quiet and unassuming nature. And I loved Eden, a naive Midwestern gal from Ohio who had huge dreams on becoming an editor. Of course this was the 1950's and woman's point of view was next to nothing at that time. But I loved her tenacity and drive! The story toggles between the 3 of them, each chapter their own voice. They have all met each other and interact throughout. The story ends in the 80's and nicely wrapped up whether you agree with the ending or not. (Go Eden!) A Good Reads giveaway.
    • 3/5
      Three woven stories, same group of acquaintances. 1950s in the publishing world, Greenwich village. I liked Eden's story the most, then Miles', but not Cliff's. For the most part, it is all rather predictable. The only part I was surprised about is who tipped the FBI about Joey (however I knew it was not who it was assumed to be ). Straightforward, but interesting enough for a look at what life may have been like for that crowd in that era.
    • 5/5
      4.5 Stars. 1958, Greenwich Village: Three young people struggle to make it in the publishing industry while also wrestling with identity issues. Suzanne Rindell deftly juggles a wide range of issues: class, sexuality, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. I felt completely immersed in the setting. This book gave me so many emotions and I had a bit of a book hangover after finishing it! "True bravery is rare."James Magnuson says that this book "does for publishing what Mad Men did for advertising." That statement made me want to read this book and I was not disappointed! Three-Martini Lunch definitely appealed to the same part of my heart that is captivated by Mad Men. It has a similar atmosphere and the same deliberate pace. If you find Mad Men slowly-paced, you might find this book slow to start. For me, the time spent setting the scene made the experience more immersive. It felt a bit like time traveling! Rindell excels at giving the reader a sense of time and place. One of my favorite scenes regarding setting is in Chapter 40 when a character travels to San Francisco and describes it in contrast to New York City: "Manhattan is concrete and ambition, steam rising from a manhole in winter, a hot blast from a subway grate in summer. Its inner workings grind away at all hours, purring in the name of commerce."It's a myth that people who live in cities are naturally more open-minded, more accepting and tolerant of difference. The truth is, whatever people are, be it saints or bigots, they simply are these things, and the city--by smashing all those different kinds of people up against one another--just makes it all that much more pronounced. The title refers to the leisurely lunches that were popular with business executives in the 50s and 60s. ("two martinis, a little business, and a third to seal the deal.") It is 500 pages, but it is a quick read. The first half sets the stage. In the second half the plot shifts to full speed, especially the last 150 pages. I was torn between wanting to rush through pages to find out what happened and wanting to put the book down because I was dreading what seemed to be the inevitable conclusion! When Cliff and Miles discuss Miles's writing in Chapter 2, a sense of dread developed that lasted throughout the entire novel. I also felt really unsettled with Eden's relationship with her manipulative "mentor.""We will always find one another, because-like all animals prowling this earth-we cannot bear to believe we are the only ones of our kind."
      […]
      "I say this to you: Choose it, boy! Choose it before it chooses you. Because it will. You think there's a way it won't, that somehow there's a way to live your life so you won't ever catch its eye, but it will and you can't. So choose. Choose while you're young and you can believe in someone and can make it last a little while. That little while is the only eternity any of us mortals ever get to have. Don't let fate do the choosing for you; don't wait until you're old and desperate-and wretched, as my father declared, for he wasn't wrong-and you're left to fumble in terrible places and it's only your body . . . yes, only your body trying to prove to the soul that it's not alone, and failing time and time again."      The story alternates between three characters who hope to be successful in the publishing industry. The three characters cross paths in Greenwich Village, a place where being an artist comes before everything else. "Everybody felt like they were on the outside looking in all the time when really it was just that the hipster scene tended to turn everything inside out and the whole idea was that we were all outsiders together " • Cliff Nelson has a difficult relationship with his father, a respected and well-known book editor. He is desperate for his father's approval. Cliff is mediocre in every way, but he has big dreams of becoming a writer. Unfortunately, he is more interested in the potential of fame and accolades than writing itself. "I got so caught up in my head writing imaginary drafts of the good reviews I was bound to receive, it made it difficult to write the actual novel." There is a great scene that really sums up Cliff, where he is boxing while staring at himself in the mirror and he still comes out on top! • Eden Katz is a Jewish woman from the Midwest who dreams of being an editor one day, which she quickly discovers will be an uphill battle. Eden has to figure out what parts of herself she is willing to give up if she wants to succeed.• Miles Tillman is a talented black writer from Harlem, but racism gives him less opportunity to succeed than someone like Cliff. He wants to live a life that makes his mother and his community proud, but in order to do that he has to deny a part of himself. Miles has to find a way to reconcile the vision of who he is supposed to be with the man he actually is. He ends up going on a quest to California to reconcile the image he has of his father with the man his father actually was, but it also becomes a journey of self-discovery. (I desperately wish the writing that resulted from this trip existed!) "That's the funny thing about doubt." "What do you mean?" "It makes you feel rotten as hell. But if anyone bothered to think about it, it's a symptom of love. It means it matters to you. It's the brain questioning the wisdom of the heart. It doesn't mean the heart doesn't know better all along, it only means the brain doesn't understand how."The book opens with Cliff, but we spend more time with Eden and Miles. Cliff is best in small doses anyway! He is the most aggravating character because he is narcissistic, entitled and is quick to rationalise his actions. He also has the most distinctive voice; it made me think back to Catcher in the Rye. Miles is the heart of the book. The results of Mile's quest become the central conflict between the three young people, in more ways than one."That's the thing about you rich people," Dolores continued. "You think you're too good to ever play second fiddle, and you can go on a hundred years pretending that's not the case! That's called arrogance, and it's like a bad tooth, only you rich folk are too hoity-toity to notice it in the mirror. At least down here when you got it, people take the trouble to knock it out of you."All the characters in this book are struggling with identity: who they are versus who they want to be. Both Eden and Miles speak of becoming invisible in order to survive and the fracturing of self that comes with surviving adulthood. Cliff was the least reflective character and had the least amount of growth, but truthfully there was no reason for him to mature or be introspective. Society doesn't demand it of him. One of the themes is that people are complex, not all good or all bad. Eden and Miles are interesting characters because they aren't saints. They experience adversity, but they also make choices that betray themselves and others with tragic results. While I've been hard on Cliff, once I read his family history it was no wonder that he turned out the way he did. (He still made me angry though!)…I felt a little mournful to think of things this way. It was a little like being at someone's funeral, and in a way I suppose I was mourning a version of myself that would never come to be.This book made me feel so many emotions! I had a 'buzzed' feeling after finishing this book, almost like I had a three-martini lunch! ;D In the acknowledgments, Suzanne Rindell says this book was "born in large part from a desire to put several books in conversation with one another," followed by a list of books: On the Road, Giovanni's Room, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Bell Jar, etc. I love that! This book is beautifully written and expertly plotted. I highly recommend it, especially for those that are interested in the time period.(This last quote is not a spoiler, but it is the last line. I don't want to forget it!)Memoirs are a tricky genre. It is a little-known secret: We are never the heroes of our own stories, unless we are lying. If we choose to count ourselves among the brave, we write ourselves as the villains we are, hoping for redemption.I won this uncorrected proof from the publisher via a Goodreads giveaway.
    • 4/5
      This second novel by Rindell takes a more straightforward approach to storytelling. We have three narrators each using the first person; a tough task for any writer to make each voice distinctive, but Rindell pulls it off. From the start the three know each other and the relationships get closer and more dangerous as the book progresses.Things start with Cliff Nelson narrating. Cliff is a laughingly delusional poseur. He thinks because he wants to be a writer he must be brilliant and his brilliance will be recognized at any moment. This is despite not writing a single thing. He drinks and talks and insists that this behavior will give him inspiration because experience is everything and you have to write what you know. Hemingway looms large in his ideas about writing. Cliff personifies the privileged white male who thinks the world owes him something.Next is Eden Katz a nice Jewish girl from the midwest who comes to New York clutching a couple of letters of introduction from a teacher back home. She lands at a middling publisher and thinks she’s made a friend, but finds out soon enough that she can’t trust anyone. She does other people’s scut work hoping for her big break into editorial. Overall she symbolizes women’s struggle to be recognized as capable, smart and worthy of careers. She doesn’t bash you over the head with it, but that’s basically her role. Then we meet Miles Tillman who is about to graduate from Columbia, but doesn’t know what comes next other than a quest to find his dead father’s lost war journal. Unlike Cliff, Miles writes a lot, but has no delusions that he will make it at all, what with being a Negro and all (the accepted term in the novel’s time of the late 1950s). After a few incidents I wondered if Miles was doomed to be everyone’s victim. Underdog through and through and you can’t help but root for him.So our cast is set on some rough courses and there are some rude awakenings, bad decisions and a lot of sex and late nights. Some things are predictable others are not. At first I thought Rusty would be the villain of the piece, but he’s a facilitator only. Cliff is the real baddie and the very little sympathy I had for him at the outset rapidly ran dry. Eden pays her price for her career willingly enough, but still pays. Miles pays the most though, but not in ways that you would expect and I liked the little ruffle of originality in his story.Some reviews complain that the characters don’t grow or change much and I disagree. They do, but only to solidify into what they already are. The timeframe of the novel isn’t very long and so I didn’t expect a big arc given that limitation. It wouldn’t be realistic and that’s mostly how this novel feels. There aren’t any big dramatic events, nothing hyperbolic or romantic. Well done.
    • 5/5
      Setting: 1958, Greenwich Village; an exciting time and place poised on the brink of change.Three young people from very different backgrounds are each trying to succeed in the publishing business. Cliff is the son of a successful book editor who doesn’t understand why his father can’t see the greatness in his less than brilliant writing. Eden longs to become an editor and is willing to start at the bottom in the secretarial pool, but as a young Jewish female finds her options for advancement are limited. Miles is a poor but talented black writer from Harlem who encounters discrimination in multiple ways.The story is told in alternating points of view by these three distinct voices. It was a little slow in the beginning as the characters and situations were developed, but once their lives intersected, it began to pick up. Each of these interesting but flawed characters were richly developed, as were a few unsavory secondary character we meet along the way.While New York in the late 1950s considered itself progressive, many discriminatory practices were the norm. The author did an excellent job portraying the atmosphere and prejudices of the era.Audio production:Narrators: Will Damron, J. D. Jackson, and Rebecca LowmanThe story was told in three alternating points of view, each voiced by a different narrator. This was very effective and makes it easier for the listener, especially when the characters are so distinctly different. At almost 17 hours in length, I was happy that the narrators maintained a good pace and all three were pleasant to listen to.