The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire: A Novel

by Seth Kaufman

A hilarious, multi-layered, modern mashup of Don Quixote, Cold Comfort Farm, and The Thirteenth Tale, The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire is an ingenious must-read for fans of romantic fiction, literary satire, and books about books.

Famous Arabic translator Oona Noor receives a mysterious manuscript from Cairo entitled The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire and realizes she has discovered a masterpiece. The book, written by an unknown author named Aisha Benengeli, spins the tale of Maxine More, a divorced, romance novel–obsessed New Yorker who envisions herself as a Georgian Lady and sees the world entirely through the prism of her beloved books. Designating her cleaning lady Magdalena Cruz as her lady-in-waiting, Lady Vee embarks on a series of misadventures. She mistakes a plumber for a famous alpha male; pursues her poodle-owning crush, Nelson Dodge; dispenses misguided advice to the lovelorn and goes man-hunting on New York’s Upper East Side. Heartbroken when the manuscript ends abruptly, translator Noor journeys to Cairo, hunts for the concluding pages, and uncovers a stunning confession from Lady Vee’s creator Benengeli about her own romantic troubles. As the author struggles to find happiness for her crazed character and herself, the translator desperately searches for the elusive writer. In the end, this delightfully inventive novel unspools three tales about three very different women, each on a quest for a perfect love story.

• ISBN10: 1637583621
• ISBN13: 9781637583623
• Publish Date: 7 June 2022
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Permuted Press
• Imprint: Post Hill Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

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Thank you NetGalley and Post Hill Press for the chance to read and review l The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire by Seth Kaufman.

 

Like good perfume, less is always more and that’s a lesson that the author really needs to learn.

 

The book is described as a comedic mashup of Don Quixote, Cold Comfort Farm, and The Thirteenth Tale. I’ve never read any of these books so all of this is a bit lost on me and I won’t talk about that. What I will be talking about is how there were 3 separate outlandish storylines in the book that became a bit too much when put together. In addition, the book could have been better written if the author (Seth) had added just some normalcy to the other characters.

 

When you read the book you know you’re in for a wild ride. The book is about a famous translator getting a copy of a book from an unknown author and tracking down who the author was, and often describing the book as a masterpiece. It turns out that the author was married to a billionaire and she and her whole family disappeared and are suspected to be dead. That’s the backdrop.

 

The main story is the story told in the book. It is about Maxine who has decided to call herself Lady Vanessa as she looks for love in Manhattanshire (New York). She gets her 19 year old cleaning lady to become her lady in waiting, convincing her by telling her that she’s going to help her find love.

 

Somewhere in the middle of the main story we also have chapters from the author of the book describing the state of her mind, as her billionaire separated husband threatens to kill her and her family as she leaves him. She’s leaving him because she’s discovered that he deals arms to countries so that they can fight their wars. He thinks its because she’s in love with someone from 25 years ago. The guy from 25 years ago sends her an email about how he’s still thinking about her, she replies, and then they start to sleep together again.

 

The thing is, Maxine has very clearly had a nervous breakdown or some form of a mental health crisis. She’s quit her job, put on some terrible makeup, and made a hoop skirt from who knows what and is calling herself Lady Vanessa. By the time her daughter arrives to help her, she’s basically harassing the plumber (and she absolutely makes the other guy really uncomfortable later in the book). Her daughter, with the help of two neighbors, throws out half of Maxine’s romance novel collection (which I consider so weird, like bro take your mom to a doctor instead), and instead of getting her mother to go to a therapist, goes away with very little insistence after a few weeks, after hiring a 19-year-old to come around for 4 hours a day and call her twice a week. Let’s also add that Maxine is living off her ex-husband's child support money, which should be going to her daughter!

 

Here’s my next problem. I get that while Maxine is being Lady Vanessa, she’ll talk like someone out of a regency romance novel. That’s no reason for every other character from the neighbors, to the woman who hit her with a painting (BASHED HER OVER THE HEAD WITH IT) and her fiancé to speak like her, which they end up doing. Then I’m also so weirded out by the old men who tried to pick her and the lady in waiting up; like bro's did no one notice anything odd about her? Even the nail place noticed she wasn’t well.

 

When you’re doing all this with one character, having the others act and sound different is important; otherwise, it turns from something amusing but sad to a bad book instead. Then adding all that in with who the real author is and her story, and the translator tracking her, it’s just too much of a mix. I also didn't need to be told that the book (story about Maxine) is such a masterpiece. That didn't work well for me.