RICH FRIENDS

A double-decker California Generation (1970) which starts with three girls who marry at roughly the same time. They, of course, used to worry about whether they ""petted above"" or ""below the waist"" before it all becomes academic. Em and Caroline are granddaughters of the Van Vliet supermarket fortune; Beverly however is Jewish--something that makes her feel marked for judgment, confirmed by the death of her only son. On to her daughter Alix, most beautiful, and Alix's love for one of Em's male twins, the handsome medical student Roger who makes an also-ran of his brother Vliet Reed in all areas; while Cricket, daughter of Caroline, has a baby fathered by Vliet Reed in one of those freaked-out Mansonesque communes which leads to the human hamburger tartare at the close. . . . The market? Well, it's Peyton Placed somewhere between that other Jacqueline and Jeannie Sakol's New Year's Eve--one of those books which is most downable if you're directed by appetite rather than taste.