時尚雙語:《浪漫》:加特·尼德霍夫的新作

The plot of “The Romantics,” a new novel by Galt Niederhoffer, unfolds during the weekend wedding of Lila Hayes, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy Yale graduate, and her former classmate Tom McDevon, a handsome, charming, social-climbing cipher. The book’s heroine—the clever, ill-at-ease, Brooklyn-dwelling Laura Rosen—was Lila’s college roommate and is now her maid of honor; Laura dated Tom first, and, unbeknownst to the gilded Waspy bride, has for years sustained an intimacy with the groom-to-be. In the book’s first chapter, Laura arrives at the nuptial site (an island off the coast of Maine) burdened by an unflattering pewter-colored gown and a heart filled with loathing for her best friend. Inevitably, romantic chaos ensues.

A party to celebrate the book’s publication was held the other day at the home of Niederhoffer’s friend Kathryn Tucker, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy movie producer, who hosted guests on the roof of her Chelsea town house. The dress code was “slutty bridesmaid or slurring groomsman,” but Tucker had ignored her own injunction, and was dressed in a flattering strapless dress the color of sea foam and red patent-leather Louboutin pumps with four-inch heels. “Look at me—it’s conservative, conservative, conservative, and then the red pumps,” Tucker said, as she elegantly navigated the treacherous decking underfoot, wineglass in hand.

Tucker has never been a bridesmaid, she said, “but I hope to be one day. It seems the better role.” She is separated from her husband, John Sloss, a sales agent for independent films. “The institution of marriage is a curious thing,” she said, with a sad smile and a tilt of the head. “It’s a noble ideal.” Theirs has been an amicable parting—“We’re best buds,” she insisted—and Sloss now lives in the lower half of the town house, which the couple bought in 2004 for a little more than five million dollars, while Tucker and their two small children live upstairs. “It’s like the perfect bohemian existence, except not,” she said.

Tucker recalled that she had disliked Sloss intensely when she first met him, during a dinner at Chasen’s, in Los Angeles, twelve years ago. “As I was leaving, I had a premonition that I was going to marry that guy,” she said. “I kept trying to shake him. He told a friend of mine that he had fallen ‘deeply and irrevocably in love’ with me. I am a sucker for romantic gestures—I am Jane Austen’s biggest fan.” They were married at their farmhouse in Columbia County. “I had my dream wedding,” she said. “My flowers were thistles—prickly things. The gift we gave people to take home was a jar of blueberry jam, and on the label it said, ‘How do I get out of this jam?’ Which was not a very auspicious start. I wore Vivienne Westwood. Richard Linklater’s daughter came and read a sonnet. My dog Rosy was in the wedding. She wore a thistle collar. It was very me.” Was it also very him, she was asked. Tucker paused. “I have no idea,” she said. “Herein lies the problem.”

Niederhoffer, who wore a flattering violet-colored gown and teetering black patent pumps, was circulating among her guests with an air of modest gratitude. “The Romantics” is her second novel; her first, “A Taxonomy of Barnacles,” has been described by reviewers as a fictionalized chronicle of her experience growing up as the clever, ill-at-ease daughter of the eccentric investor Victor Niederhoffer, who named her for Francis Galton, the Victorian anthropologist and the coiner of the term eugenics. Niederhoffer is thirty-two and is a producer of independent movies as well as a novelist. She lives in a brownstone in Cobble Hill with her partner, Jim Strouse, and their children, Magnolia, three, and Grover, one. Magnolia is named for the West Village bakery where the couple met. “I was a customer, and he was a trusty icer, recently off the turnip truck,” Niederhoffer recalled. “I was a brazen New York JAP, and he was a totally oblivious rube from the Midwest. I picked him up. It was a horribly tawdry beginning. He told me his name was Jim and his brother was Tim, and I thought, He’s really from a different planet.”

The couple have been engaged since before Niederhoffer was pregnant with Magnolia but have no immediate plans to marry. “I come from the kind of family where marriage has not exactly spelled success,” she said. Victor Niederhoffer and his first wife, Gail, divorced after the birth of Galt and her sister Katie; he went on to have four more daughters with his second wife, Susan. Three years ago, he conceived another child with his longtime paramour, Laurel Kenner. “In a way, my book party is my wedding,” Niederhoffer said. “This is a better thing to aspire to, isn’t it? To be celebrated for your intelligence and your talent, rather than for your size-two beauty.”

With the sun setting over the Hudson, Niederhoffer, who by now had removed her shoes, like a bride after three hours on the dance floor, gave a toast, offering particular thanks to Kathryn Tucker: “The gorgeous blonde. So glamorous. So lovely.” Tucker was still standing effortlessly in her red pumps, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t had anything to eat. “It’s just like a wedding,” she said, as a waitress came by with an empty tray. “You get drunk and you forget to eat, and you don’t have that great a night.” The waitress returned with a tray of spring rolls, but Tucker declined, with another tilt of the head and a sorry smile, as if discouraging a suitor with a polite, insincere show of regret.

加特·尼德霍夫的新作《浪漫》的故事情節是在萊拉·海耶斯週末的婚禮上展開的。海耶斯是個金髮美女，一名聰明而又富貴的耶魯大學研究生。她以前的同班同學湯姆·麥克德文是一個帥氣迷人而又愛攀龍附鳳的人。該小說的女主角——居住在布魯克林的智慧而不安分的羅拉·羅斯——是萊拉的大學室友，也是她如今的伴娘。羅拉在認識有錢人海耶斯之前就和湯姆交往過，又和現在的準新郎也維持過幾年的親密關係。小說的第一章，羅拉穿着笨重的、令人難受的藍灰色禮服來到婚禮現場（離緬因州不遠的一個島上），她的內心充滿了對好友的憎恨。很顯然，浪漫氣息接踵而來。

幾天前，尼德霍夫在好朋友凱瑟琳·塔克家裏舉辦了一個慶祝小說出版的派對。凱瑟琳也是個金髮美女，聰明有財富，電影製片人。她在切爾西城內的住宅頂樓招待賓客。當晚的着裝要求是要麼帶猥瑣性質的伴娘裝，要麼帶詆譭性質的伴郎裝。但是塔克自己卻不顧這個要求，當晚她身穿着一條漂亮的海藍色吊帶連衣裙，腳穿一雙著名的盧博婷四英寸跟的紅色漆皮單鞋。她手握着葡萄酒杯，優雅的指着腳下的裝飾，說道，“看看我，這兒保守，這兒保守，保守，以及這雙紅色單鞋”。

塔克從來沒有做過伴娘，她說，“我希望有一天能做伴娘，看上去這是個更好的角色”。她和身爲獨立影片銷售代理人的丈夫約翰·斯洛斯已經分居。她歪着頭憂傷的笑着說，“婚姻真是奇妙”。他們的婚姻已經有了一個友好的結束。“我們是最好的朋友”她強調道。現在斯洛斯住下面一半的樓層，而塔克和她兩個小孩則住上半部分樓層。這棟房子是他們兩夫妻在零四年花了不到五百萬美元買下的。她又說道，“不排除的話，我們很像波西米亞居住方式”。

塔克回憶十二年前，她在洛杉磯蔡斯家的宴會上第一次見斯洛斯時，就對他喜歡得不得了。“當我離開時，我就預感我會嫁給這個男人”，她說道，“我不停的跟他握手，他跟我一個朋友說他已經無可救藥地深深地愛上了我。我是個超級喜歡浪漫的人——我很迷簡·奧斯丁的作品”。後來，他們在哥倫比亞郡的農場別墅結婚。她說，“我得到了我夢想般的婚禮，花是多刺的蒼紫花，我們給賓朋帶回家的禮物是一罐藍莓醬，商標上寫着‘我怎麼離開這罐果醬呢？’這可不是一個很吉利的婚宴開端啊！我穿着維維恩·韋斯特伍德設計的禮服。理查德·林克萊特的女兒也帶着她的十四行詩來參加我們的婚禮。我的狗兒羅斯也在婚禮上，她帶着薊項圈，她就像我一樣”。當被問到狗兒是否也像他時，塔克停頓了下，說，“我不知道，這也隱埋了我們倆的問題”。

尼德霍夫穿着一件漂亮的紫羅蘭色的禮服和一雙寬大的黑色專利單鞋，帶謙遜的感激之情走進賓客之中。《浪漫》是她的第二部小說，她的第一部小說《刑具分類》已經被評論家評爲她自己的成長小說。她自小就聰明而不安分，父親維克托·尼德霍夫是個古怪的投資者，他給女兒取名爲弗朗西斯·加特——維多利亞人類學家和優生法的創造者。尼德霍夫現年三十二歲，獨立電影製片人，也是一名小說家。她和丈夫吉姆·斯特勞斯以及兩個小孩（三歲的瑪格諾麗亞和一歲的格洛佛）住在科博爾山鎮的赤竭色砂石高級住宅裏。瑪格諾麗亞是以西村的一個麪包房店名而命名的，這是他倆夫婦相遇的地方。“當時我是一名顧客，他是一名可靠的裝冰工人，剛離開裝着蕪青的卡車”，尼德霍夫回憶，“我可是一名響噹噹的紐約大作家，而他很明顯是一個來自中西部的鄉巴佬。不過我讓他搭車了，這是個非常庸俗的開端。他告訴我他叫吉姆，他哥哥叫蒂姆。我想他真是來自另外一個星球的人”。

他們在尼德霍夫懷上瑪格諾麗亞前就已經訂婚了，但他們還沒有立即結婚的打算。她說，“我出身一個婚姻失敗的家庭”。當時，父親維克托·尼德霍夫和他的第一任妻子蓋爾在加特和她姐姐出生後離婚了，後來與第二任妻子蘇珊生了四個小孩。三年以後，他和他多年的情婦羅瑞爾·肯娜爾又懷了另一個孩子。“從某種程度上說，我小說裏的派對就是我的婚禮”，尼德霍夫說道，“這是一件更令人渴望的好事，不是嗎？不是爲了你不錯的美貌，而是爲了你的智慧和才能而慶祝。

當太陽升上哈得遜河岸時，已經脫掉了鞋的尼德霍夫像是一個在舞池當中跳了三個小時舞的新娘，她向大家祝酒，特別提出了對凱瑟琳·塔克的感激，“感謝這位漂亮的金髮碧眼女人，你太迷人了，太可愛了”。塔克仍然穿着那雙輕鬆的紅色單鞋，儘管她什麼東西都沒有吃。“這就像是一場婚禮”，一個女侍應走過來拿走空托盤時，尼德霍夫說，“你喝酒了，但是你忘記吃東西了，所以你並沒度過一個美好的晚上”。這時侍應端過來一盤春捲，但是塔克拒絕了。她又是歪着頭，抱歉的一笑，好像是禮貌而又不太真誠地回絕一個追求者。