All Is Vanity

by Christina Schwarz

At once darkly comedic and moving, this witty exploration of female friendship, envy, and misguided ambition by the author of the number-one bestseller Drowning Ruth, deliciously satirizes the desire to shine in the world.

In All is Vanity, Margaret and Letty, best friends since childhood and now living on opposite coasts, reach their mid-thirties and begin to chafe at their sense that they are not where they ought to be in life. Margaret, driven and overconfident, decides the best way to rectify this is to quit her job and whip out a literary tour de force. Frustrated almost immediately and humiliated at every turn, Margaret turns to Letty for support. But as Letty, a stay-at-home mother of four, begins to feel pressured to make a good showing in the upper-middle-class Los Angeles society into which her husband’s new job has thrust her, Margaret sees a plot unfolding that’s better than anything she could make up. Desperate to finish her book and against her better nature, she pushes Letty to take greater and greater risks, and secretly steals her friend’s stories as fast as she can live them. Hungry for the world’s regard, Margaret rashly sacrifices one of the things most precious to her, until the novel’s suspenseful conclusion shows her the terrible consequences of her betrayal.

Widely celebrated for her debut novel, Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwarz once again proves herself to be a writer of remarkable depth and

range. Like Drowning Ruth, All is Vanity probes into the mysteries of the human heart and uncovers the passions that drive ordinary

people to break the rules in pursuit of their own desires.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Chick Lit, Friendship, Novels

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2002

Reviews

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwartz’s characters are witty, charming, funny and sometimes cruel. She does an amazing job of making people and places come to life on the page. I feel like I know these two BFFs so well that I have met them and known them for years.

Watching their lives unfold on opposite coasts of the United States, yet still intertwined, was fascinating. The end was shocking. It is definitely worthwhile to read the Afterword.

The only reason I cannot give it 5 stars is because some sections dragged on for too long. There was almost too much detail which became tedious when I was excited to see what would happen next for these women. The book was amazing, but could have been accomplished with 30 pages less.

This is the third book that I have read by Schwarz. This one and “Drowning Ruth” are my favorites. They are so fantastic that I want to read more from Schwarz. But, I did not care for “So Long at the Fair.”

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a supremely frustrating book. I was very irritated by the two main characters. To be fair, I did keep reading to see what happened and I think the author (who also wrote Drowning Ruth) did a good job of describing the characters and their day to day struggles. However, I am still disappointed that I devoted any time to it.

[Meagan Houle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking this journey with Margaret and Letty was fun and satisfying, if a little sobering here and there. There was something gloriously meta about watching these two deluded characters march blithely toward disaster while seeming so smugly self-aware. (One wonders how their husbands remained so passive.)
The author's gift is such that, even when the characters were being cruel and foolish, it was hard not to feel sympathy for them. In a less talented person's hands, reading about Margaret's bombastic self-justifications and Letty's vacuous bids for approval would be depressing. Somehow, Schwarz invites us to laugh, to empathize, even to feel compassion.
Most impressively, she invites us to see these flawed women in ourselves. Who among us has not procrastinated? Made unwise choices? Considered manipulation to get what we desire? Felt slighted by the world?
Margaret and Letty seem like extreme caricatures at first glance, but they are merely who most of us might be if circumstances arranged themselves differently. None of us is too far away from being a Margaret or a Letty, and half the joy of this book is the ability to admit that inconvenient truth, even as we thank our lucky stars we aren't them.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm positive that I've read this book before, probably pre-Goodreads. Despite the plot feeling sickeningly familiar, despite being repulsed by these characters (Letty alone was somewhat likeable at the beginning, but quickly devolved into a horrifying caricature of consumerism), despite knowing this was all going to end very, very badly, I couldn't look away.

That's gotta be worth 3 stars.

[Rachel M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters really bugged me. Margaret didn't seem to care about anything other than being the best at something. It seemed like the only reason she wanted to write a novel was for the acclaim it would give her, and not because she had a message.

You know how they say that the people that annoy you the most are the ones whose faults are most like your own? Throughout the course of this book, I started to see that Margaret grated on me because she was so real (and probably because I identify with her faults). As irritated as I was, I had to know more about her. It's like the way you feel when you think your name has been said out loud, and you tune in.

Letty, on the other hand, begins the story as a charmingly clumsy housewife with the gift of just the right words to make any moment memorable and funny. But when her husband gets an important job, she becomes more and more consumed with appearing good enough in society - having the right tiles on the kitchen floor, the right kind of organic yogurt in the fridge, etc.

These characters were so real that if a camera had caught them on film, you would see the rough edges and the acne, rather than their air-brushed loveliness. All had their weaknesses, with the power to undo them: Margaret's prideful desire to stand out, to be the best; Letty's envious desire to have everything (herself, her home, her children) look beautiful to those around her; Ted's parsimonious need to record every single purchase in the house ledger. I was reminded of Golem's pursuit of his "precious:" we all have the ability to be Golem or Smeagol, according to the sway that we give to that darker side of our characters, the thing we are always in question of whether we can or cannot live without. Schwarz imparted this truth honestly and without cutting corners, so, while it was sometimes painful to read, this was a very valuable book.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written in 2003 and in some ways, it is a bit dated, but it is very well done. Some reviewers on Amazon say that the characters aren't realistic, but I think the past decade has shown the Letty could very well be a real person whose desire to keep up with the people around her drives her family into bankruptcy. The story is about two best friends. Margaret, who quits her job as a teacher to write a novel and Letty who lives with her husband and 4 kids in LA. Margaret then suffers a terrible case of writers block while Letty's husband gets a new job in a large art gallery and is suddenly spending lots of money just to keep up with his new job. Margaret then begins to use Letty to help her over come her block. My biggest problem with the novel is that it takes way to long to get going. Margaret suffers from writer's block for a very long time! You know what is coming if you just read the book cover and it would have been a better book if the author had gotten there sooner.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story about two friends living completely different lives: a stay-at-home mother of four in Los Angeles and an aspiring novelist in New York City. I thought this was going to be a book about women coping with their place in life in their mid-thirties. It is . . . but it is so much more than that. The story takes an unexpected turn and I discovered that it’s really about the pitfalls of consumerism, competitiveness and, you guessed it, vanity. Reading this book was like the proverbial roadside accident – you’re afraid of what you’ll see if you look, but at the same time – you just can’t look away.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

…and so is the book. I din't like or identify with any of the characters, who were vapid for different reasons. I kept putting the book down to do other things, never eager to pick it back up, which is very unusual for a vorracious reader who blows through 1+ books a day on vacation. The only redeeming quality was teh anger that i felt at both characters and how they got what they deserved. If this emotional of a reaction to a book is good and registers some sort of connection, I can only say it was matched by relief when I could put the book down and walk away.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny book that manages to be sad at the same time, this is a must read for anyone who ever thought of taking a year off from work to write a book. Part of the story focuses on the growing indebtedness of one couple, which may feel uncomfortably close to home by anyone facing a mortgage foreclosure. The story examines overconfidence and friendship in a fresh and insightful way.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is a comedic critique of greed and competitive acquisition. The plot involves two friends struggling with their own versions of trying to "look good" to others. The main character, Margaret, quits her day job to become a Famous Novelist and then lies to everyone around her when writing does not come easily to her. Her friend, Letty, lives in Los Angeles, where she wants to acquire the glossy lifestyle of her friends. To do so, she makes some risky economic decisions. The two stories come together in an unusual way.

This book was written in 2002, but it foreshadows all the issues surrounding the 2008 economic crisis. As I was reading it, the story about the college admissions arms race and its rigged contours was breaking in the news. The themes about keeping up with the Joneses and all of the ways in which people lie, cheat, and steal to do so make this somewhat dated novel (floppy disks!) have ongoing relevance. It's not perfect -- the two narrators aren't equal speakers here, and the structure is weird. Also, the main characters are not "likeable," and that can be an issue for some people-- but I'm glad I read it.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think in future I will only read Ms. Schwarz's historical novels (Drowning Ruth is one of my all time favorite novels), her contemporary novels just don't do it for me. This book is not bad and I'm sure it will appeal to many but I just couldn't really get interested even though I could see it was quite witty and a good satire of a certain American way of life. Not to mention the ending, which I clearly didn't undersand...

[Pam Coll · Rating 3 out of 5]

A most unpleasant story. Mankind's ability to self-destruct, to choose wrong goals and pursue them into the inevitable inferno. Margaret is the worst kind of human being, unredeemable. Letty is the foolish wife and mother with no boundaries of common sense but she is a survivor, as we all are if we have to live with terrible truths about oneself.

[Jil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Langdradig verhaal. Bij het lezen van de omschrijving had ik een andere wending verwacht die pas laat in het verhaal kwam en heel kort. Al vond ik het onderwerp wel interessant dat schrijven van boek in een verhaal was uitgewerkt. Door niet goede uitwerking weinig sterren toegekend.

[Andrea Elkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was disheartening but also compelling - I not only read the entire book in 24 hours, but proceeded to take 10 minutes to summarize the entire storyline for my (mostly disinterested) husband.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to take a break from historical fiction on my last couple of days on vacation, and I gave this book a try. Reading this one is akin to watching a train wreck—you know what is going to happen, it slightly sickens you, but you can’t really turn away. As the back cover eloquently puts it, “At heart, Schwarz’s novel depicts the narcissistic flair in contemporary society: No one can stand to be average.” The main two characters are best friends from childhood, both of whom express this desire differently. Margaret takes a year off from private school teaching to write the great American novel, convinced she will crank out the book in a matter of weeks, finally unveiling her talent that has been hitherto just below the surface. Letty wants so badly to keep-up-with-the-Jones that she and her husband begin over spending after her rather retiring art historian husband gets a new job at a swanky contemporary art museum.

I do agree with some earlier reviewers that the book is a bit too long and drags in the middle. But overall, I definitely enjoyed the satire and dark comedy in this book, and given the current economy, you can’t help but appreciate the commentary on the ease of become dangerously in debt.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I found this book amusing, but as the story developed I began to chafe at the self indulgence and self absorption of both Margaret and Letty. Letty's e-mails were entertaining, but the consumerism (is that spelled right) and "keeping up with the Jones" attempts soured me. And as for Margaret, she's lucky she married an understanding and forgiving man... I think the author tried to show us how both characters grew, but it seemed too little, too late.

However, the book kept me reading, because I just had to see how far each woman would dig herself in before she began to claw out, and had to see what the solution was. I really admired the way the author chose to tidy it up, without taking the obvious course (don't want to give too much of a spoiler here). This was a completely different type of book than Drowning Ruth, also by this author, which I also read, and also found disturbing. But unlike that book, I felt there was redemption of a sort here.

[Bonnie Thrasher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. A person who felt being a teacher was beneath her quits to write a novel. She also felt her best friend was beneath her. She felt putting effort into school was beneath her. So she attempts to focus for once, only to discover she has no story to tell. Said best friend’s husband gets a job in a prestigious museum. Money is made; a house is purchased. Renovations on house, wardrobe, school choice, vehicles, lawn ensues. All of which is relayed to the would be writer in emails. Hark! Writer starts writing up these stories, all the while knowing best friend is spending a fortune. All is predictable. All is dreadful. Ugh. Sure was a big let down after Drowning Ruth.

[Cam]

I don't remember anything about this book! I just wrote in my journal that I had read it, and that it wasn't nearly as good as, "Drowning Ruth" which is a book I really enjoyed by the same author. I read another of her books earlier this year or late last year, and didn't like that one either. I'm not sure I'd read any of her books in the future, although I still recommend, "Drowning Ruth" which was an interesting book.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, entertaining, moody, a little sad, a good summer beach read, witty, interesting -- all of this. A little long, but still.... A woman who wants to write a novel but finds she is in a bit over her head. The best part of the book is the excuses she invents for herself NOT to write. Her best friend inadvertently helps her out and the ending is unexpected and ??? Do not want to give anything away.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letty and Margaret are childhood friends from California. Letty is a stay-at-home mom who keeps in touch with her best friend through amusing emails detailing her struggles to keep up with the LA "Joneses." Margaret as moved to NYC and has quit her job to write a novel. The story details the rise and fall of each. Funny, satirical, a bit too long.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

if you liked the 1st Shopaholic book then you'll probably like this one... just this time it's light reading about grown women with that quirky sense of humour and overblown sense of entitlement. It was a slow read in the beginning but gets better and i actually cared about the two main characters despite their many faults.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. There were some good lessons taught but I did find the stupidity of one family to be a little over-the-top. The saddest part about said stupidity is that I know there are people just like that out there, otherwise Americans would not have just experienced a pretty costly recession.

[Korie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emily gave me this book bc she lost interest. And while it isn't super in-depth and does contain a lot of correspondance in lieu of actual text, it was pretty interesting to me. (A perfect read for at night). I found myself thinking about it and wanting to see what happened. Thanks Emily!

[Lisette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and borderline obnoxious. The two main characters are spoiled and self-centered -- and very little happens. Unlikable characters, minimal plot. A few mildly amusing moments. Skip it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was certainly on the edge of my seat for most of this book. Schwarz keeps you turning pages.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about this book. First of all, only one character in the entire book was likeable - the others are fatally flawed, which in essence is the point of the book. The first two hundred pages were killer and I can sum them up in one sentence: Letty wants to write a book, so she quits her day job but she has no idea for her book, so she procrastinates in every way possible and makes up excuses to herself and her husband about why she hasn’t written anything. Of course, these 200 pages also lay down a foundation for the rest of the book, but in the most tedious, sleep-inducing way possible. And I say that from experience. The rest (and ending) of the book you can see coming from 300 miles away, and you stay to read in and watch the train wreck.
However, despite the fact that I hated it, I’m glad I read it and found it to be an excellent book club pick. It provided a lot of introspection and some wonderful book club discussion late into the night!

[Kitty Maloona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to love this as much as I did. It started intriguingly, but I often lose interest in novels halfway through because the writer fails to sustain pace and introduces extraneous characters and detours. This one, however, turned out to be an exquisitely funny yet achingly uncomfortable mix that sustained its pace and tension unfailingly to the last line and remained lean and meaty throughout. I was physically cringing at parts, yet laughing too at the razor's edge humour. What was really clever I thought was how the balance of culpability appeared to shift and morph and alter as you viewed the characters' increasingly ill-chosen actions. Anyway I'm off to read reviews of Schwarz's other novels to see if they will afford me as much pleasure as this one did.

[Nana · Rating 3 out of 5]

All is Vanity was a local book club selection. I had a very difficult time reading this book. I couldn't make myself like Margaret for all of her selfishness and deception. Letty, on the other hand, was a pitiful character who was caught up in attempt to "keep up with the Joneses," who in this case were far above her financial status. Sections in the book that may have otherwise been humorous to others were not at all funny to me. The entire book is a tragic representation of so-called "best friends." I felt saddened by the developments in the lives of both characters, more angry at Margaret however.

[Lisa K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really likable story full of unlikable characters. The women - friends since childhood - are our main characters and are better rounded than the men. They make cringe-worthy bad decisions about money, honesty, and how to treat each other; you will cover your eyes or blurt out "no, don't" at least once. I don't want to admit to being like these two, but rationalizations for why one isn't ready to sit down to writing her novel just yet or why the other *need* to buy something were achingly familiar. I truly enjoyed reading this all the way to the satisfying ending.

[Ron Scheese · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't a huge fan. An interesting twist on society's quest for meaning and the dangers of "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality.

It was hard for me to relate to the main characters, two life long friends now living different lives on two separate coasts, yet connected by their decades of friendship and reliance on one another for support.

There were times I wanted to call it quits but I persevered. The 2nd half of the book had some more energy which helped carry the narrative and boosted my rating a little.