“Page Flipping” is Madame Noire‘s weekly column on books. Stay tuned for more topics, comment or write us at editors@madamenoire.com if you have suggestions!
How Madames long for the days when shows like Living Single and Girlfriends brought brown faces to Sex and the City-type stories. In her debut novel, One Flight Up, Susan Fales-Hill gives the ladies what they want. The Hot new book features four multi-hued friends who navigate the rough terrain of sex and relationships in toney Manhattan neighborhoods, Parisian suites and the occasional utility closet when in a pinch.
In One Flight Up, readers encounter four women on the tail end of their 30s whose bond dates back to their days in a stuffy prep school for girls. Three of the four friends are miserably married for various reasons and one woman is living with her beau.
India Chumley, the ringless one of the bunch, has a black father and a white mother and has always felt a bit self-conscious about the “What are you?” questions and looks she frequently gets. As a high-powered attorney at a major law firm with a couple of Ivy League degrees to her credit, India works long hours. Her safe, reliable and handsome live-in boyfriend Julien tries hard to accommodate her schedule. India’s life is complicated by the fact that she has an apartment that Julien doesn’t know about and her low down dirty, but incredibly gorgeous ex Keith has re-appeared. In Sex and the City language, Julien is India’s Aidan and Keith is her Big.
The three other ladies—Abby, Esme and Monique—are trying to hold on to their husbands for less than romantic reasons and they all find their own temptations, which they occasionally give in to at India’s secret bachelorette pad. Fales-Hill creates believable, complex characters that readers can relate to, if even they aren’t in the same tax bracket.
One Flight Up shows the butt ugly side of marriage. In fairytales, the story always ends with a marriage and a happily ever after. The ladies in this novel show that the “ever after” is not guaranteed to be happy or even forever. The book is not exactly a case against marriage, but it does make single Madames think long and hard about what it means to take on a life partner and what qualities are truly important. Is there a difference between someone who makes a good boyfriend and someone who makes a good husband?
Fales-Hill, daughter of a white father and a black mother, seems to be most closely linked biographically to India. Her upper class upbringing and her illustrious career as an award-winning television writer, producer and author have afforded her many luxuries in life. She writes knowingly of designer clothes, purses that could be a car’s down payment and shoes that are more sculpture than footwear.
One Flight Up is a delectable journey into the minds, bedrooms and closets of women who occupy Manhattan’s buttery brown upper crust. Gasp-worthy plot twists will have Madames screaming advice to the sometimes morally challenged foursome. With a delightfully satisfying ending and a cast of endearing character’s, Fales-Hill’s debut novel is a must read.
