Everybody Rise

'A juicy, scheme-filled update on Edith Wharton, and it's unputdownable.' LENA DUNHAM'S Lenny lifestyle newsletter

Everybody wants to belong.

It's 2006 in the Manhattan of the young and glamorous. At 26, bright, funny and socially anxious Evelyn Beegan is determined to free herself from the social-climbing mother who propelled her through prep school and on to the Upper East Side.

Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at social network site People Like Us, aimed at the elite, she befriends glamorous queen bee Camilla Rutherford and steps into a promised land of private schools, regattas, second homes and the society pages. Evelyn soon finds the lure of belonging intoxicating and starts trying to pass as old money herself.

Her lies start small, but with her lawyer father being investigated by a grand jury, and with money and class colliding in a city that is about to go over a financial precipice, Evelyn's position on the rickety social ladder begins to shake. After every rise must there be a fall?

In the bestselling tradition of social-climbing tales told by an outsider such as The Great Gatsby, The Devil Wears Prada, Prep and Gossip Girl, comes this extraordinary debut novel by Stephanie Clifford.

'GOSSIP GIRL fans, rejoice! Behold the literary version of a Jenny-esque narrated story, had she met Blair and Serena in her mid-20s.' MARIE CLAIRE

'A new hire for a social-networking site takes her job recruiting "the elite's elite" to extremes.' VOGUE

'An intriguing look at class distinctions and social climbing, Stephanie Clifford's debut is not to be missed.' INSTYLE

'An ambitious New Yorker insinuates herself into the old guard in the years before the financial crisis. Clifford details the manners of the old-money set with a reporter's well-trained eye.'

NEW YORK TIMES

'A buzzy Tom Wolfe-meets-Edith Wharton novel of young Manhattan.' HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

'An intoxicating blend of class, ambition and money.' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

'A Manhattan-set class satire with the bite to satisfy postrecession readers.' TIME MAGAZINE

'Addictive. Think PREP meets THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

'A smart, moving tale of class, ambition and identity.' MALCOLM GLADWELL