My new novel, the Sandersons Fail Manhattan, is due out in a few months. St. Martin's did a great job with the cover, no?
(If you wish to pre-order, you can do it here. And think of your friends, they might need copies too!)
The original title was "All the Lovely People," which frankly I loved. The kernel of inspiration for the book was my annoyance with all the smart and successful people out there who sat in positions of authority (see: NYC private school boards) who did nothing while the institutions they "oversaw" were being radically transformed.
These were—are—the "lovely people."
St. Martin's view was that it was the perfect title but only if you'd already read the book. If you hadn't, the title was not enough to compel you to find out more, something an effective title would do.
The example they touted was a book called "Fleishman Is in Trouble." Not exactly the "War and Peace" of titles, I thought, but their point was that people wanted to know why this guy Fleishman was in trouble.
Did they? Yes.
"Fleishman" was a best seller and went on to Netflix fame, so point taken, I suppose.
So, I went back to the drawing board and came up with a bunch of ideas, and St. Martin's loved "The Sandersons Fail Manhattan."
Who are these Sandersons, you wonder, and why are they failing? I have to admit, it has grown on me.
By the way, the early buzz seems to be strong. Here's what Chistopher Buckley (Thank You for Smoking) had to say (he read it in two nights):
"Scott Johnston is the sharpest -- and most fun to read -- satirical novelist writing today. Following on his brilliant debut novel Campusland, he now turns his attention to Manhattan's ever-so-upper East Side, in a laugh-out loud mash-up of Bonfire of the Vanities and Mean Girls. This is D.E.I. at its best: Delicious, Entertaining, Intelligent. Did I mention fun? Great fun."
A little braggy, I apologize, but I'm told I must promote my work.
So, for grins, I'll give you another chapter.
This scene takes place at Mory's, in New Haven, a venerable Yale establishment. The head of the Lenox School for Girls in New York (around which much of the novel is based) has traveled to meet the head of Yale admissions.
"The Number"
Padma rode the Metro North commuter line up to New Haven. Normally, Faith Collins, Lenox Hill’s college counselor, would have made a trip like this, but Padma wanted to handle this one herself.
Wilson Girard’s office, in the middle of campus, was just as Susan had described it. She mentioned in an email before coming that she’d never been to Mory’s, and that she’d “heard good things.” She's also heard that Wilson was more forthcoming outside the office, most particularly with a cocktail in his hand.
They made the short walk over from Wilson's office, dodging an errant frisbee or two along the way.
“You know, Yalies invented the frisbee,” he said, tossing one back.
“No, I didn’t know.” Or care, she thought.
“Back in the fifties, students loved the pies from Frisbie’s Pie Company in nearby Bridgeport. One day, some of them turned the pie tins upside down and started throwing them around and the Frisbee was born. So the story goes, anyway.”
“Who knew?” said Padma.
“Who indeed? Ah, here we are.”
They arrived at what looked like a small white clapboard house. Inside was a warren of wood-paneled rooms. The tables were all heavily carved with generations of Yalie initials as well as the crests for the many a cappella groups that would come and sing for their suppers (or drinks, at any rate). Padma had seen the famous Whiffenpoofs sing once when they’d made a west coast swing.
When a tabletop was fully carved, it was removed and bolted to the walls as a kind of art. What wall space remained was crammed with pictures of Yale athletes-past, all wearing the distinct letter sweaters, white with a blue Y. Padma found it odd that such a progressive school cherished such a backward-looking institution like Mory's, but these east coast schools all loved their traditions.
Wilson led them to a booth. After examining the menu, Padma ordered a salad and something called Baker Soup, along with a Hendrick’s and tonic. She tended to be abstemious, but she was hoping Wilson would follow suit. College admissions officers, at least the ones from desirable schools, were notoriously guarded individuals, and she was here to gather information. She suspected his inner chauvinist wouldn’t allow a woman drink alone.
Sure enough, Wilson obliged, ordering a Macallans on the rocks, along with rarebit.
“Rabbit?” Padma queried. “Where are we, King Arthur’s court?”
“Rarebit, not rabbit. Courtesy of the Welsh. Quite tasty, really.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
The bow-tied waiter returned with the drinks in no time.
“Thank you, Duane.”
“Of course, Mr. Girard,” said Duane, turning to see to other tables.
“Much of the staff has been here for decades,” said Wilson.
Padma made small talk for a few minutes, waiting for the Macallans to cast its pleasant spell over Wilson. They spoke for a while, exchanging war stories. Wilson complained about how the foreign kids, particularly the wealthier Chinese, had started hiring third parties to write their kids’ essays from scratch. “And now we have AI to contend with, ChatGPT and such, on top of everything. The damn things have gotten to the point where they can write a decent essay.”
Padma knew this was already becoming a problem at secondary schools as well, and software countermeasures were being used. Staying ahead of cheaters was effectively an arms race.
Wilson ordered another Macallans. Ever so casually, Padma said, “So, how’s this year shaping up?”
“Very well, or very rough, depending on one’s perspective. We’ll set another record, that seems baked in the cake. We can’t even keep up with the foreign applications, and now that we’re a free ride for anyone whose parents make less than 75k, we’re looking at record numbers domestically, too.”
“How are things shaping up for us, Wilson?”
“Oh. Applications aren’t even in yet, Padma. I don’t know how to answer that.”
“I know, but maybe we can speak in general terms.”
“Ah, so when you say ‘us’…”
“I mean a school like ours.”
“I think we have a good understanding, don’t we? I assume you have spoken to your predecessor?”
“I have.”
“Then you understand our priorities, institutionally?”
Padma did indeed, and she whole-heartedly agreed with those priorities. But if she was going to be an agent of change, she also had to keep her job. It was a fine line.
“I do, but what about…the others?”
“The others?”
“The more…traditional applicants. I do have constituencies I need to please.”
“Ah, I see.” Wilson to a long swig of his Macallans. “I think you can guess. Got any athletes?”
As the Ivies made room for the foreign, the BIPOC, and the first generation applicants (“first-gens”), athletics had become the last redoubt for most rich white kids in the admissions process. Not football or basketball, mind you, but there was still squash, rowing, golf, fencing, and the biggie, lacrosse. Each of these sports needed to fill a team, and most of the BIPOC kids didn’t have access to a squash court or a rowing shell. Thus, in the Greenwich, Connecticuts, and the Brookline, Massachusettses, there was almost an insatiable demand for private coaches and expensive travel teams.
This was somewhat problematic for city schools like Lenox Hill. They didn’t have the endless playing fields of the New England boarding schools like Andover or the suburban schools like Brunswick. Lenox Hill’s outdoor teams were forced to take a bus for thirty minutes each afternoon to the scruffy fields on Randalls Island, which lay in the noisy shadows of the RFK bridge between the Harlem and East Rivers.
“You know that’s a challenge for us, Wilson. A squash player or two, maybe.”
“Hmm. What about specialists? Any musicians? Scientists?”
“Where are you with legacies these days?” asked Padma. The mere asking made her feel dirty.
“We’re on the verge of phasing them out as a preference altogether. A vestige of another era. In fact, you could say we’re already there, with some exceptions, of course.”
“Those exceptions being kids who happen to be preceded by large checks.”
“Hey, the endowment’s only $45 billion, someone’s got to pay the bills.”
“That was humor, I assume.”
“Yes, humor. It wasn’t funny?”
“It was a little funny.”
“Yes, well, you try being funny after reading a hundred applications a day. Where is Duane?”
“Off snaring a rabbit somewhere, I imagine.”
“It’s not rabbit,” said Wilson.
“It was my turn to make a joke.”
“Ha! I can’t stand all this funny.”
“So, it pains me, but I have to ask: what’s the number?”
Wilson knew exactly what she meant. The “number” was a mere rumor to most, but in certain circles, such as the corner booth at Mory’s on a Wednesday afternoon after two Macallans, it was a real thing. The number was what it cost to buy your kid’s way into Yale.
There were caveats, of course. Your kid couldn’t be a dullard. Those days of well-connected legacies gliding in with B- averages were decades in the past. A minuses and high 600s on all SATs were a necessary floor. Anything lower would drag down the class averages too much, which was unacceptable at any price. Despite how much private contempt they held for it, even the most elite colleges were slaves to the U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings. SATs were a big factor.
Still, if your kid met those academic thresholds, there remained a number, and it got bigger every year. It took a lot, after all, to move that $45 billion needle.
Wilson gave her an answer.
“Seriously?” asked Padma.
“Seriously. The money flows from Asia are off the charts. Mid-East, too. Russia was big for a while, but we have to be careful about them these days.”
“Are these people sending their kids here?
“Some, but a lot of them give money just to have their family names associated with us. The Arabs, in particular. They may not have kids in the pile, but they want a program or a professor’s chair named after them. A Saudi sheik wrote a $30 million check just last week.”
“Wow,” said Padma. “What did he get?”
“An endowed chair in Islamic Studies.”
Yale was a brand of incalculable worth, and they knew damn well what they could get for their precious slots. As for the sheik, $30 mil was probably a drop in the bucket, but it bought him instant prestige, perhaps also washing the stain of some of his country’s less savory pastimes.
“We also get about a billion a year from the feds, which is basically the cherry on top. So, you can see we pretty much don’t have to cater to legacies. An added benefit, between you and me, is that we don’t have to care what our alums think about our approach to things and whether the football team is having a winning year. We pretend to care, of course, but we don’t.”
“I see,” said Padma, who wondered what revelations a third glass of Macallans might bring.
“But, of course, some of our alums are exceptionally generous so exceptions are made. You have any parents this year who play at that level?”
“Maybe. I’ve got one private equity daughter coming up. Father’s at Bedrock.”
“Well, I would think he’s practically choking on money.”
“I suppose. The kid would be fourth gen.”
“Well, I told you what good that does. In fact, it’s a borderline negative with most of my colleagues. Does she play any sports?”
“Not well enough for D1.”
Wilson eyed the small amount of whiskey left in his tumbler. “You should know, even with a big number, there isn’t likely to be room for more than one or two from a school like yours. One to two traditional candidates, I mean. If we’re talking non-traditional, well, there’s no real ceiling.”
Padma knew this would make for an unpleasant conversation with William Sanderson, whom she was supposed to meet in a few days. The Sandersons had met with Miss Collins, Lenox’s college counselor, a few weeks before, and William had made it clear he expected Ginny to enroll at Yale. The sheer entitlement of it boiled Palma’s blood, but she kept that to herself.
“Hey, if it helps, there’s another number that will still get the kid’s folder a hard second look. It helps, but it’s far from a guarantee.”
“And what is that?”
Wilson told her. Padma leaned back and sighed. “It’s good to be king, I suppose.”
“Well, it beats the eighties when I was an undergrad and the place was falling apart.”
“Hard to imagine,” said Padma. “Wilson, I need to get our numbers up. I know you spoke with my predecessor some years ago and I want you to know Lenox responded.
“Yes, I remember. Your efforts have been quite impressive, but you must understand, we’re under a great deal of pressure here.”
“Pressure? You guys are Yale. You get to make the rules. You’re the ones who apply the pressure.”
“It may look that way, Padma, but we all have people we answer to.”
“And who would that be? The students?”
Wilson gave Padma a crooked smile. “Absolutely. We’re terrified of them. And hey, don’t think I like any of this. Part of me misses the days when we took the class president who was also captain of the football team and a National Merit Scholar. Now you’ve either got to be a specialist or goddamn Greta Thunberg. That’s just the way it is.”
Wilson drained the last of his Macallans. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he said.
“Tell me what?”
“I think you already know we’re prioritizing equity, but there’s an institutional view, from our side of the fence, that schools like Lenox just aren’t keeping up with the kind of equity that we’re looking for in an independent school these days.”
“Wilson, we don’t disagree about any of this. Did you know we just accepted our first eco-sexual.”
“That’s intriguing.” Wilson flagged the waiter. “Duane, could I get some rice pudding? Make it two.”
“I’m fine, really,” said Padma.
“No, no, you really must try some. It’s transcendent.”
Padma relented and Duane came right back with two servings. Wilson started shoveling some in his mouth.
“So, remind me what those are again?”
“What?”
“Eco-sexuals.”
“It’s a newly revealed gender choice. They have relations with nature.
“You really are making an effort.”
“We are.”
“I’ll level with you, Padma. Here’s what I’m up against: it’s perception. The public perception, and the perception from here in New Haven, is that schools like Lenox have not kept pace with the times, even if you say that you have. Appearances are everything. If you want better results from us, you need to move that needle. You’re fighting a century-old reputation. For most of that time, that reputation worked for you. Now, not so much. Bottom line, you need to make a statement,” said Wilson.
“What kind of statement?”
“Something bold. Right now, our focus is on the trans. We need to get our numbers above Harvard’s, but I don’t imagine you can be much help there.”
“Wilson, I’ll be sure to take everything you said into consideration.”
Padma choked down some rice pudding. She was Indian, so she knew what good rice pudding was. This wasn’t it.
“Mm, it’s delicious.”
“I knew you’d like it!”
