Satan's Naked Women, Gatsby's Cocktails, And Other Literary Fetes
On the guests at the Bavardages' parties
All the men are white and over the age of 35 and have a certain bank balance. And all the women, they come in two varieties: they're either social X-rays or lemon tarts, and the social X-rays are being slowly supplanted by the lemon tarts, who are shapelier versions of the wives [of the men] ... A social X-ray is a woman who is emaciated and normally married to a high-net-worth man and is kind of trying desperately to hang on to her looks ... It's not a particularly appealing description, but it certainly is a humorous one.
On how to approach a party which, like the Bavardages', might not sound like fun
The advice I would give is probably just to keep the conversation light and fluffy. Otherwise, the one piece of advice I learned out of looking at the Bavardage's party was more the idea that there are these conversational bouquets and at one moment, Sherman McCoy is kind of ostracized from the bunch, and he describes the agony he's going through at being a social outcast.
And I'm sure we all kind of can recognize that moment, where we're somehow left out of the party and we can't quite talk to anyone, or when we first arrive at a party, and waiting for our friend to arrive. And I think the really good thing that Inez fails to do at this point but one should always do is to look out and make sure that this doesn't happen to any of your guests, and to just kind of go, "Oh!" and introduce them to someone. Because that's what parties are about, end of the day, is everybody getting to meet new friends and start new lives, and all the things that parties can bring.
Party On
The Salt
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