The J.A.P. Chronicles: A Novel

After seventeen years, the girls from Willow Lake Camp reunite and find that some things have changed, while others will always remain the same.


Meet Ali . . .

Ali dropped her hand and slunk lower in her chair. Dafna and Beth were dressed like twins (of course) . . . What was it with that outfit? Was it something that came with your apartment when you moved to the Upper East Side, like a welcome basket in a hotel room filled with fruit and champagne? (Welcome to the Upper East Side! Enjoy your Marc Jacobs skirt and top and these adorable Manolo Blahnik sandals!)

Meet Arden . . .

Arden hated odd numbers . . . Their old hateful apartment had been on the ninth floor of a West Side prewar building and although the space had been charming and a bona fide movie star had lived on the floor above them, Arden felt, after consulting both a numerologist and a feng shui specialist, that the vibe was entirely too negative on an odd-numbered floor.

Meet Dafna . . .

Most of her peers were already engaged or married. One or two even had children. Even Beth was engaged. It was unthinkable. The girl who had played second fiddle to Dafna since they were eught years old was going to walk down the aisle first!? How could it be? She, Dafna Eve Shapiro, who had never been short of boyfriends, wasn’t about to end up an old maid!

Meet Beth . . .

Tried on 9 dresses. Hated them all. Hate my nose. And my thighs. And my hair. Why did I cut it? I told Kevin to keep it at my shoulders, and now it’s just below my chin. My face has never looked more round. If someone drilled three holes in the top of my head, you could bowl with it. I feel like suing Kevin. I hate him. I’m not going to have him do my hair for the wedding after all.

Meet Wendy…

It was a further amazement to Arden to think that the once-formidable Wendy Levin was now nothing more then a well-toned, well-manicured, well-dressed suburban mom . . . It was a far cry from the superjock camper everyone thought would win the U.S. Open one day.

Sex and the City meets Jane Austen in a wickedly funny, razor-sharp novel about the fortunes and misfortunes, expectations and regrets of seven women who shared long-ago summers at an elite Jewish girls’ camp.

Anyone who’s ever wondered what happened to the girls in the exclusive cliques of adolescence will delight in The J.A.P. Chronicles. With the wry wit and keen eye and ear of a latter-day Jane Austen, Isabel Rose (herself a scion of a prominent New York family) provides the ultimate insider’s look at the glamorous upper-crust society that even Carrie Bradshaw would give her Jimmy Choos to join.

When seven former bunkmates at Willow Lake Camp reunite for the camp’s one hundredth anniversary, the event brings more than just a revival of the old camp spirit. Ali Cohen, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and former camp outcast, plans to make a documentary about her former bunkmates. The ugly duckling turned successful self-made swan secretly hopes that that her teenage tormentors will have grown into adult losers.

As each woman steps into focus, however, it becomes clear that it is not quite that simple. Sure, Arden can’t keep a job (even as a nanny!), Jessica is stuck in regional theater, and Dafna has lost both her job and her $20,000 per month stipend from her father. But Laura is apparently flourishing as a Los Angeles superagent, and Beth has found happiness by throwing over her dull but successful fiancé for her wedding photographer. Even Wendy, golden girl turned Short Hills housewife, has managed to skirt around old regrets and long-stifled urges—until seeing an old acquaintance stirs them up again.

Funny, smart, and ultimately moving, The J.A.P. Chronicles opens a whole new perspective on the girls from the “best families” and on the money, culture, and expectations that define their lives.