Lucinda Rosenfeld ’87
Little, Brown
January 2017
In this satirical novel, idealistic 40-something Karen Kipple works full-time in the nonprofit sector, aiding an organization that helps hungry children from disadvantaged homes. Determined to live her personal life in accordance with her ideals, she sends her daughter, Ruby, to an integrated public school in their Brooklyn neighborhood. But when a troubled student from a nearby housing project begins bullying children in Ruby’s class, the distant social and economic issues Karen has always claimed to care about so passionately feel uncomfortably close to home. As the situation at school escalates, Karen can’t help but wonder whether her do-gooder husband takes himself and his causes more seriously than her work and Ruby’s wellbeing. A daring, discussable satire about gentrification and liberal hypocrisy, and a candid take on rich and poor, white and black, Class is also a smartly written story that reveals how life as we live it—not as we like to imagine it—often unfolds in gray areas.
