Benabib, 27, is the son of a mother who painted and a father who dealt paintings. His is a cautionary tale concerning the fragile integrity of Stuart Finley, a sensitive junior curator of old-master drawings who accidentally spills a glass of ice water on the famous, domineering painter Miles Levy one night in a trendy SoHo restaurant. He falls in love with Claire Labrouste (rhymes with ““abused’’), a beautiful auction-house assistant and member of Levy’s entourage. She carries a tragic secret about her past with the dangerous painter. Should Stuart stick with the polite life uptown? Or should he follow his heart and other organs into the fast lane? Hand that boy the car keys.
The supposed fun for arty readers is figuring out which real-life megalomaniac Miles Levy stands for, which reptilian dealer slithers behind David Lieberthal, etc. But this isn’t a crossword puzzle; it’s a novel. And in spite of the somewhat stereotypical characters (has there ever been a nice dealer in a novel?), Benabib’s unpretentious prose and carefully shaded ending make it a pretty good one.
Goldsmith, author of the best-selling ““The First Wives Club,’’ shades nothing delicately. ““Bestseller’s’’ five hopeful authors range from Evian to nuclear waste on the integrity scale. At the top, there’s an Indiana librarian devoting her life to the publication of her dead daughter’s 1,100-page opus – without a single word altered. At the bottom lurks a college prof exploiting the wife he dumped his first wife for to pen the novel for which he’ll steal full credit. In between, labor a publisher/ author (his initials are G.O.D.) willing to cook the company’s books to get his novel on the charts, a fading Judith Krantz write-alike and a comely young English tour guide in Florence, whose novel is exquisitely literary without even trying. Goldsmith hands out her characters’ rewards and comeuppances like Jane Austen dealing blackjack. Although there’s not a soupon of sincerity in ““The Bestseller,’’ you keep licking your fingers and reaching for the next page as if it were another potato chip.
