Product Description

Wanted:
One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless—bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employers Hermès bag. Those who take it personally need not apply.

Who wouldn’t want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn’t work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day.

When the Xs marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #343877 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Released on: 2003-03-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Couldn't put it down
My sister-in-law was a nanny for several years, so when I saw this book, I had to get it for both of us. Every story she ever told me has unfolded in this 306 page book.

The authors, former nannies themselves, have a disclaimer at the front of the book stating that the characters written are completely ficticious and not based on any particular past employer. This must be why the main character's name is simply "Nanny", and her employers are "Mr. and Mrs. X". Nanny has just been hired by the wealthy Xes to look after their son Grayer. She is to replace the old nanny, who had the audacity to request a week off to visit her sick sister in Australia. Nanny is just looking to keep her rent money coming in while completing her senior year at NYC, but soon finds that she is drawn to poor little Grayer, who at times can be a pill, but for the most part is just a poor little rich kid who wants his parents to notice him. Mrs. X spends most of her time shopping, planning dinner parties (in the hopes that her absentee/workaholic husband just might spend time with them), and volunteering on several committees. Nanny is used to the explicit demands Mrs. X requests for Grayer, and is not surprised when Mrs. X constantly asks her to do extra chores she wasn't hired for (like picking up Mrs. X's dry cleaning, picking up about 12 different items for a 30 people dinner party, or even escorting Grayer and the Xes to a fancy executive Halloween bash dressed as a giant Teletubby- one of the funniest passages in the book). Or, she'll show up 2 hours past the time she told Nanny she'd be home, leaving Nanny little more than 15 minutes to get to a school to give a speech that will determine whether she passes or fails. Nanny feels it's worth it, though, when the envelope of cash comes at the end of the week ("most nannies are paid under the table", she tells us).

Even so, Nanny gets more than she bargained for when, at the Halloween bash, she and Grayer walk in on Mr. X and his Chicago executive (whom the book simply calls "Ms. Chicago")making out. Mr. X acts as if mothing is amiss, and Nanny is left to question whether or not she should report this infidelity to his wife. Slowly, Mrs. X begins to get her own suspicions, and Grayer begins to fall apart under the obvious cloud of neglect and dread that his father has stirred up. Nanny wants to run, but feels obligated to navigate these treacherous adult waters for Grayer, hoping things will calm down on their own. Meanwhile, she's also fallen for a Harvard student that lives in the Xes building, leaving Mrs. X to treat her badly and hurl rude comments at her because she is jealous of the happiness Nanny is finding with a guy. Hhhmph! How can Nanny tread through these tumultuous waters and still graduate from NYC? You'll have to find out for yourself. I read this book in less than 48 hours because I couldn't wait to find out what outrageous thing Mrs. X would come up with next. After listening to my sis-in-law's horror stories, I found that I wasn't surprised about the Xes shannanigans. All in all, a very interesting look into the frustrating world of raising someone elses children under extreme conditions.

Nanny Knows It All
Nanny Knows It All

Although I expected this book to be funny, having heard that it delves deep into the quirks of New York's wealthy elite, I was not prepared for the feelings of indignation, dismay and embarrassment it evoked as well. Beneath the simple story line - a twenty something college student works as a nanny to pay the rent - lays a minefield of human dysfunction. There is the mother who can't stand to touch or be with her child for more than a few minutes, and only then if he is completely clean; the father who routinely fails to show up for preplanned family events such as trips to Aspen, Christmas parties and dinner parties; the father's mistress who tries to enlist Nanny in her secret trysts; and the father's secretary who is always covering for her boss. And that's just the immediate family. Things get even more complicated and uncomfortable as Nanny's duties are expanded to include helping the wife shop, run errands and make restaurant reservations. What saves the novel from becoming just another tawdry soap opera is the skillful development of the relationship between Nanny and her 4-year old charge Grayer, and the healthy reality checks provided by Nan's (Nannny) outspoken and eminently practical family.

Like all young children, Grayer can be a terror. He bites, he kicks, he refuses to play nicely, and at first he can't stand the sight of Nanny who has come to replace his previous and much loved caretaker, Caitlin. However, as time goes on Grayer and Nanny hammer out a relationship and a routine they both can enjoy. However, as the tension builds between Grayer's parents, becomes clear that a meltdown is inevitable. What makes it almost unbearable is Grayer's vulnerability and Nanny's inability to protect him. Be prepared for humor laced with bitterness and sorrow as The Nanny Diaries proves that in the midst of abundance it is possible to starve from lack of love.

Cutting-Edge Satire
I'm familiar with the terrain, the industry, and even some of the types that Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus have so perceptively skewered in THE NANNY DIARIES. The perceptions and morality of their young protagonist strike me as being spot-on, but I wonder how perceptive she'd be if she weren't, both by education and ancestry, very close to being part of that world herself.

Along that line, I thought that the most poignant moments came in her descriptions of other nannies, less-advantaged, and with the exception of one, Sima, less-well-educated, and the terrible suppressed anger they feel.

I don't think this is a funny book. I think this is a superbly concentrated book about love and cruelty. "Nan" is not cruel; she's loving; and she's fortunate to have loving parents and a grandmother who can set her straight -- a gift she tries to pass onto her young charge Grayer, who really is quite charming and funny. His gift to her of a Valentine and his abiding affection for his prior nanny, Caitlin, were beautifully done.

But the Xes...here is social satire at its most ferocious. The authors nail the requisite status symbols and the extravagance of the financial nouveaux (by the way, the lavender linen water really is very nice!). Their dialogue is marvelously nuanced, from the casual effrontery of Mrs. X, appropriating Nanny's life, to her notes, to the jargon-laden tranquilizing speech of the parasitical "problem-solving" professionals who cater to people like her, to the bluntness of Mr. X and his mother. And the writers contrast it with the parents who -are- parents, both in New York and on Nantucket, which remains a place where the old families are readily distinguishable from summer people.

What I noticed as I went through the book (and people might want to be careful here because I'm coming dangerously close to SPOILERS!) is that Mrs. X gradually emerges as one of the "guerrilla wives." She stole her husband from the first Mrs. X and knows that she too can be replaced with a younger, juicier model: her cruelty is that of someone temporarily higher on the food chain, but aware that she is as much of a handi-wipe as the ones that good nannies (and good parents) carry to clean up messes with.

There is some -schadenfreude- here: it's fun, even cathartic, to see these particular rich and careless people as bad and to laugh at their antics. The authors are more subtle than that, however: despite their comments about bunnies and elevators with more and nicer spaces than most of the rest of New York's denizens, they're quite aware of the domestic human tragedies in the world of conspicuous consumption that they chronicle.

And they leave open the question that intrigued me: What would Nanny do, given a financially advantageous marriage, if, suddenly, she found herself standing in their Pradas? For that matter, what would the rest of us do?

With considerably more vim and four-letter words, these writers in their debut novel add new sight lines to the territory of JANE EYRE, THE GREAT GATSBY, and Edith Wharton. The rich are different. They're cruel. They're careless. And their world, while unforgiving to the discards, can be seductive to onlookers.

VERY well-done, VERY well-written, but too painful to be the "romp" its marketing push led me to expect.