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'Gossip' leads to downward spiral
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Published: September 28, 2008
GOSSIP OF THE STARLINGS. By Nina de Gramont. Algonquin Books. 288 pages. $22.95.
Catherine Morrow has a reputation for being a bad girl. Her father withdrew her from Waverly, her coed boarding school, after she was discovered in bed with her boyfriend. Afterward, he sent her to the Esther Percy School for Girls. There, as one of the conditions of her enrollment, she shares a wall with the dorm counselor. The counselor, though, rarely makes the trip from her room to Catherine's, so she has no idea that Catherine is in the habit of snorting cocaine off the top of a contraband toaster oven after lights out.
Catherine quickly becomes friends with Skye Butterfield, the ephemerally beautiful daughter of a highly respected senator. Skye's permanent record is also spotty, but her transgressions have noble underpinnings. She was suspended, then expelled, from a private school called Devon. First, she was caught writing papers for a student attending on a football scholarship, but she claimed he had been deprived of a good education. Then, she left school without permission to protest a plant that manufactured bomb triggers. Even after her expulsion, New England mothers still ask their daughters why they can't be more like Skye.
But Skye is the kind of good girl who would rather be bad. She tries cocaine and an assortment of other drugs supplied by Catherine's friends from Waverly. Skye seduces the boyfriend of Catherine's best friend, Susannah, before moving on to a long-term, manipulative relationship with a teacher. Early on, Catherine intuits that Skye is headed for a bad end, but in spite of herself gets caught up in Skye's wake. Catherine can't stop the deliberate downward spiral or free herself from it.
The plot itself is standard boarding-school fare, full of gossip, rivalries and horse shows. More interesting than the novel's events is its exploration of friendships between teenage girls. Skye's very presence complicates Catherine's relationship with Susannah. It's not a matter of jealousy, though. Catherine's behavior is subtly different when Skye is around, and Susannah, unlike Catherine, gleans deliberate, manipulative roots in Skye's actions.
While the events themselves aren't groundbreaking, they still combine to make the book a page-turner. Reading it is like indulging in the guilty pleasure of gossip. Even though an older Catherine narrates the story of her teenage self, the book has the flavor of reading someone else's diary or eavesdropping on a mildly malicious conversation about a poorly liked acquaintance.
■ Tracy Wilson is a reviewer who lives in Atlanta.
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