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Q and A with Wednesday Martin‚ and book club discussion: Primates of Park Avenue

When the women at book club first saw Wednesday Martin on the tv that we were using to Skype with her‚ they were expecting her to be all done up‚  and perfectly manicured like all the women she explains in the book. Instead we got a laid back woman liked the rest of us. One woman explained even her bedroom that she was skyping in was normal. I guess we were expecting sculptures and tons of fancy art on the wall. She was someone we could relate to . She was charming and spoke to us for forty minutes when at first she only told me she could only speak for ten. Prior to talking to the author we all went around the room and talked about if we enjoyed the book or not. I loved the book. Some people had a hard time with it. Maybe to do with the pettiness of some of the women and that they were driven by competition to the point of being in their character defects. One woman in the book club was honest and shared‚ “don’t we all struggle with vanity at times and wanting to compete?” That made me think. Wednesday Martin talked about the book and that it was going to be turned into a movie. She shared that she still talked to the women. Wednesday let us know what was going on in her life now. She also discussed her upcoming projects.

In the book Wednesday Martin shared that it was hard to get into this elite Mommy group at first. Some of the women were cold and did not make it easy. Of Course there was the standard of always being done up and having the right wardrobe. Also‚ one needs to know the right people‚ put their children in the right schools‚ and the right extracurricular activities. While trying to have the perfect prodigy child one must also look like a million bucks and be model skinny. I related to being the perfect weight when I was in my twenties and single. I thought if I looked perfect then I was worthy. That turned into an eating disorder. Thank God I do not live my life that way anymore. I am much kinder to myself now. I didn’t know better until I got desperate enough to get help. I wonder with these women if they grew up with their Mother’s giving them the same example. Now‚ they still do not know there is another way to live without all the pressure. These women are easy to judge because their vanity is on higher scale than most. I can still be vain and think‚ “ugh my jeans do not fit right and I need to go on a diet.” I guess the difference is now I catch myself when I am having these thoughts and realize these things do not matter in the grand scheme of life. It made me sad in some ways when I read the book because these women are so hard on themselves to the point of being abusive to oneself. 

In the interview we got to talk to Wednesday Martin about the aftermath of the book. She ended up moving to Upper West side New York because it is much more chill on that side of town. She still talks to some of the women in the book and occasionally will visit them in the Upper East where she studied these women. She had told the women that she became friends with that she was evaluating them from a social science aspect. In the book there is the Queen B who is like the leader in the Means Girls movie. She was rude to people and was snotty to Wednesday Martin about her book. She is divorced now and unhappy. Some women in book club asked if the subjects of the book were upset about anything written in the book. Wednesday Martin said that they were fine with the book and they had known upfront that they were being studied.

The book is being turned into a movie which I am excited about. If you loved the movie Devil Wears Prada you will be into this movie. It is the same director who directed Devil Wears Prada. It will be neat to see the book played out on screen‚ who the actors will be‚ and what they keep in the book or change. Wednesday Martin’s book Primates of Park Avenue is now translated in Italian which is cool. As a writer I think it would be exciting to see what other people think of the book in different countries with a contrasting culture. Next up on the horizon Wednesday Martin is using her social science background and studying women and their sexuality. Stay tuned for when the movie comes out. I will love to see the comparison from the book and the movie.

You can find Wednesday Martin’s book Primates Of ParkAvenue at  amazon.com

You can also find out more about the author and read her blog at http://wednesdaymartin.com/blog/ She has great articles from the magazine PsychologyToday 

Here is a link to one of her articles in online magazine 

The One Topic American Parents Need to Discuss but Aren’t