'Lace': The Correct Ratio Of Dates To Sexual Favors

When you Classic Trashers first requested that Shirley Conran’s Lace be our next selection, I have to admit: I had, straight-up, never heard of it. Ever! Isn’t that amazing? I mean, all I ever wanted, as a young girl, was to attend a Swiss finishing school, and then to become very rich and spend a lot of time enjoying liquid lunches at expensive Manhattan restaurants while engaging in vicious frenemy conflicts with my female peer group. I know, I know — it’s like looking into a mirror, isn’t it?

Now, this mother is a billion pages long, so let’s push past the formalities, shall we? If you’re squeamish, you may also want to skip the novel’s prelude, which is The Most Gruesome Description Of A Thirteen Year Old Undergoing An Illegal Abortion You Are Likely To Come Across In A Work Of Mainstream Fiction. Which, curiously, reads like an homage to Nabokov’s depiction of Humbert Humbert getting all up on Lolita for the first time. Really! It’s totally “stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh, a wincing child.” But, seriously, just… take my word for it.

The Internet has predictably destroyed my attention span, so I confess to a brief, shuddering moment of “oh, goddammit, I have to remember details about five female protagonists? The whole point being that four of them are basically socially interchangeable? What is this, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers?” But then I moved on. But just in case you’re phoning it in, we have: Lili, the famous young movie star, who has gathered together Maxine (the one who travels with her own yogurt — see below), Judy (comes from yucky super-religious Southern background), Pagan (has poor blood circulation), and Kate (has Sylvia Plath-y associations with her father), to ask the ultimate question (and I quote): “Which one of you bitches is my mother?”) Because, you know, they were all at finishing school together, and one of them had a baaaaaaaaby. That old story.

If you, too, find the idea of so many vaginas slightly overwhelming, I strongly encourage you to tough it out, at least long enough to get to the bizarre passage in which Pagan’s mother attempts to finger-bang a teenage Kate on her way into the shower. Which, again, SO cod-Nabokov!: “She could see the pores of Mrs. Trelawney’s nose, the drooping, fleshy folds above her eyes, black-beaded with mascara.” Or the delightful interlude in which a young Maxine outlines the correct ratio of dates to sexual favors: first date, merely a significant look, second date, kiss on cheek, third date, kiss on lips, fourth date, tongue, fifth date, above the waist (over or under the clothes, depending on your sluttiness) OR, if you’re truly daring, “the boy strokes the fur.” This naturally brings up the question, as a friend of mine pointed out, “Do you have to keep upping the ante eternally? Say, date twenty-four, he gets to rim you?” Maxine, much like your know-it-all friend in high school, is totally full of it, as we learn when she meets her first actual male member: “Did you bend it forward? Did you rotate it? Could it snap off?”

Oh, and just to emphasize that Shirley Conran is no John Cleland, penis-hagiographer: “The lavender-pink penis reared up from its nest of black hair, balls wobbling beneath it. How ugly it was, Kate thought.” Apart from being somewhat down on penises, Conran is fabulous at reminding us about whole swaths of men who are better off left alone, in case you’d forgotten and needed a refresher: bankers, sheiks, Greek shipping magnates, bisexual chauffeurs (real rich people know to call them “drivers,” apparently) and ski racers.

Is it any good? Well, it’s just a little like a J. Peterman catalog, you know? If the book contained hyperlinks to allow you to purchase things as they were name-checked (“orange satin box shorts and a pink kimono,” “the baby’s shawl, delicate as a cream lace cobweb, that she used instead of a bed jacket”), we could monetize the shit out of it! But, I mean, that’s not a criticism, per se. And it’s now my favorite book, a position I expect it to hold for at least a week!

Context-Free Excerpts From Lace Which Indicate How Fabulously Wealthy Everyone Is

• “She took absolutely no notice of luggage allowances…”

• “Maxine had merely accepted a little caviar (no toast) and only one glass of champagne (non-vintage, but Moet, she observed with approval before accepting it). From a burgundy suede tote she had then produced a white plastic box that contained a small silver spoon, a pot of homemade yogurt and a large, juicy peach from her own hot-house.”

• “As the limousine started to crawl forward, Maxine glanced at her diamond wristwatch — there was plenty of time before the six-thirty meeting at the Pierre.”

• “Last month’s telephone call had been followed by a confirming letter on thick, cream paper with the single word LILI centrally engraved in navy Bodoni typeface; for some reason Lili had no last name.”

• “…the resigned, sour face of her grandfather’s valet as he scratched the mud from Pagan’s riding clothes in the brushing room.”

• “Pagan fingered the delicate little green malachite butterfly that hung around her neck on a fine gold Cartier chain.”

• “She could see the snow-topped mountains of Gstaad, framed by the white lace curtains of her open bedroom window.”

• “Kate’s quiet, ladylike clothes came from Debenham & Freebody because the little Princesses’ clothes were bought there, and ‘By Appointment to Her Majesty’ was printed on their boxes.”

• “In one corner, Prince Aly Khan was earnestly whispering into the ear of a raven-haired South American girl. Beyond him, the young, slim Elizabeth Taylor reached for her fourth slice of sacher torte.”

We’re going to stop our selection of context-free excerpts right there. First, can anyone ACTUALLY eat four slices of sacher torte? Second, all of these context-free excerpts occur prior to page 48 of the novel.

Wasn’t that fun? Don’t you wish you had nice, matching luggage? Your turn! Some dishy questions to get us started!

• Why hadn’t I heard of Lace? Did you watch the 1980s miniseries? Was Phoebe Cates fabulous?
• If your name was “Nicole Cliffe,” would you be weirded out if you unexpectedly encountered a “Nick Cliffe” in a work of Classic Trash? Would you feel a sudden kinship with Bastian Balthazar Bux?
• Which New York socialite would you want to claim as your estranged birth mother, should the situation arise? Obviously, you are not going to say “Kelly Bensimon,” because that would be… gross.
• When you look at the context-free excerpts, does this book not seem… just a smidge… like American Psycho for people with vaginas?

Our next selection is my Favorite Work of Classic Trash Ever: Jilly Cooper’s Riders.

Nicole Cliffe is the proprietress of Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews.