Closing Costs

"The well-drawn characters complement Margolis's wry observations on Manhattan life and the ups and downs of marriage and career." PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Fans of Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen will revel in this zesty tale of penthouse envy and dot-com detumescence." BOOKLIST When Peggy Gimmel decides to sell the apartment she bought decades ago for a few thousand dollars, she's thrilled to discover that it's worth almost $2 million. But her sudden windfall triggers a cascade of unexpected events and plunges her into the dizzying orbit of Lucinda Wells, one of Manhattan's most successful and ruthless real-estate agents. Peggy's not the only one at Lucinda's mercy. There's also the technology entrepreneur struggling to salvage his sinking company while gut-renovating his home, the socialite exiled from Park Avenue to the pullout sofa of her parents' West Side apartment, the illegal immigrant amassing a fortune printing money, and the clueless widow trying to unload a world-class collection of fake artwork. These are just some of the characters whose lives intersect in unlikely ways, all of them nearly overwhelmed by the rocketing real-estate market and the hard-charging broker who holds the key to their future. As he interweaves these often suspenseful and frequently comical stories, Margolis captures the zeitgeist of a cultural moment, keeping us turning the pages with the rise and fall of his characters' fortunes.