ADMISSIONS

For its intended audience, a laugh-out-loud debut about admissions to Manhattan’s coveted private schools.

The story runs from September through February. All private school admissions must be sent in by the Thursday after Labor Day, and many of the parental twists and turns here are taken from real life, like one man’s donation of $1 million to get his obstreperous son into kindergarten. Helen Drager’s daughter, Zoe, is completing The School’s K-8 grades and now must get into a private high-school as a sophomore. Helen, an art historian, has asked for admission forms from six: the Fancy Girls’ School, the Progressive School, the Quasi Country School, the Safety School, the Very Brainy Girls’ School, and the Downtown School. Advising her is best friend Sara Nash, admissions officer of The School, which claims itself able to get any of its students into their place of choice. But queenly Pamela Rothchild, The School’s matriarch, plays hide-and-seek with parents desperate for help in getting their children into high school as she cozies up to big donors and celebs. Even Sara can’t fill the kindergarten quota without Pamela’s okay, while poor Helen, whose unhelpful husband produces TV Cooking Network shows, now wakes at three a.m. suffering from “nocturnal admissions.” Must Zoe’s best friend, Julian, a cross-dresser who had the lead in Auntie Mame, go to boarding school? With October as interview month, nervous Zoe asks Julian whether she should give blow jobs to be a popular coed in high school. November brings a collective soothing to the insecurities of parents. For admissions directors, December is the cruelest month, stuffed with eleventh-hour applications. And there’s funereal news for hopeful parents: haughty Pamela, overthrown, quits for a fictitious better job. January finds Helen fending off a romantic art dealer, while Sara, The School’s new head, does psychic housecleaning.

Which school does Zoe land in? Not telling. All in all: big fun for select readers.