The Fundamentals Of Play

Harry Lombardi is trying hard to gatecrash a party that he isn't invited to: a party full of style and effortless charm. Short, volatile and ambitious, he wants to enter the exclusive circle of George Lenhart's young Manhattanite friends. With old northeastern money and families behind them and lucrative careers on Wall Street ahead, the order of their day is a cool disdain for ambition and an ironic distance from passion.George, from a good but moneyless family, feels rather out of place in the world of shared pasts and privilege that he is a part of. Harry has money to spare but it's new money from new technologies - what he wants is a way in. Both of them (and others besides) want Kate Goodenow, the casually elegant embodiment of their desires - all shared secrets and sailing boats, summers in the Hamptons and confidence bred in the bone. Kate doesn't need much - certainly not Harry's too-obvious ambition. But old money was once new, and the rich have very sharp survival instincts...