Innocent Fashion

<p><strong>Writing in a fervently literary style that flirts openly with the traditions of Salinger Plath and Fitzgerald Hernández is a diamond-sharp satirist and a bracingly fresh chronicler of the heartbreak of trying to grow up. Honest and absurd funny and tragic wild and lovely this novel describes modern coming-of-age with poetic precision.*</strong><br/></p><p><em>The Devil Wears Prada</em> meets <em>The Bell Jar </em>in this story of a wide-eyed Ivy League grad who discovers that his dream of making it at leading New York City fashion magazine <em>Régine</em> may well be his undoing.</p><p>Elián San Jamar knew from childhood that he was destined for a better life than the one his working-class multiracial parents share in Texas--a life inspired by <em>Régine</em>'s pages. A full ride to Yale opens the door to a more glamorous world and he quickly befriends Madeline and Dorian both scions of incredible wealth and privilege. With their help he reinvents himself and after four decadent years he graduates as Ethan St. James. But reality hits hard when Ethan arrives at <em>Régine </em>and is relegated to the lowest rung of the ladder.</p><p>Mordantly funny and emotionally ruthless <em>An Innocent Fashion </em>is the saga of a true millennial--naïve idealistic struggling with his identity and sexuality--trying to survive in an industry and in a city notorious for attracting new graduates only to chew them up and spit them out. Oscillating between melodrama and whip-smart sarcasm pretentiousness and heartbreaking vulnerability increasingly disillusioned with <em>Régine </em>and Madeline and Dorian Ethan begins to unravel.</p><p>As the narratives of his conflicted childhood cloistered collegiate experience and existential crisis braid together this deeply moving coming-of-age novel for the twenty-first century spirals toward a devastating realization: You can follow your dreams but what happens if your dreams are just not enough?</p><p>*<em>Kirkus Reviews</em> (starred)</p>