Confessions of a Social Climber

by Solomon Downe

Jesse Garnet is a young man on the make. He fast-talks his way into becoming chief-of-staff for Howard Brockaway, the sybaritic Senator from New York. He makes himself indispensable to favor-seeking magnates, including the founder of an international hamburger franchise. Jesse's life would be a romp but for his shadowy personal history. At five, his parents and sister were killed in Israel under mysterious circumstances. Raised in Brooklyn by his Zionist grandparents, Jesse grows up sheltered from the byzantine politics that destroyed his family. But his strange encounters with his great-uncle Otto threaten to undermine his upward climb into elite Washington. A satire on contemporary American politics, Confessions of a Social Climber is also a story about the power of personal and group identity.

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999