Books in Brief: The Right Places (for the Right People)

The Right Places (for the Right People), by Stephen Birmingham (Little, Brown, 275 pp., $8.95).

Now that “everybody” has money—that is, can afford, on time payments, swimming pools, cruises, jets to Europe—the old “right places” don’t much matter anymore. The new “right places,” says Birmingham, are “the lovely deltas and oases, mental and otherwise, where the good life is flourishing at full strength.” They are open to just about anybody with the price of admission; there are no more “nobodies” from “nowhere.” Birmingham takes us on a tour of some of the high spots: Kansas City; Fort Lauderdale; Fairfield County, Connecticut (where Bette Davis, who lives in Westport, would never be asked to a party in Southport; and where things are Changing); P. J. Clarke’s; and the new, boutiqueified Bergdorf’s in New York City. One amusing chapter deals with the grubby entertaining style of the rich; there is a pleasant, sympathetic sketch of Ambassador Walter Annenberg, and an account of how desperate once-exclusive clubs, country and town, are to recruit members. All in all: a mildly interesting book. Mistah Gatsby, he dead.

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C. H. Simonds

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The Right Places (for the Right People), by Stephen Birmingham (Little, Brown, 275 pp., $8.95).

Now that “everybody” has money—that is, can afford, on time payments, swimming pools, cruises, jets to Europe—the old “right places” don’t much matter anymore. The new “right places,” says Birmingham, are “the lovely deltas and oases, mental and otherwise, where the good life is flourishing at full strength.” They are open to just about anybody with the price of admission; there are no more “nobodies” from “nowhere.” Birmingham takes us on a tour of some of the high spots: Kansas City; Fort Lauderdale; Fairfield County, Connecticut (where Bette Davis, who lives in Westport, would never be asked to a party in Southport; and where things are Changing); P. J. Clarke’s; and the new, boutiqueified Bergdorf’s in New York City. One amusing chapter deals with the grubby entertaining style of the rich; there is a pleasant, sympathetic sketch of Ambassador Walter Annenberg, and an account of how desperate once-exclusive clubs, country and town, are to recruit members. All in all: a mildly interesting book. Mistah Gatsby, he dead.