Excerpt of The Overnight Socialite

Bridie Clark, author of Because She Can, is out this month with another sparkly tale of the glories and pitfalls of young Manhattan. The Overnight Socialite tells the story of Lucy Jo Ellis, an aspiring fashion designer battling it out in the trenches with the rest of New York’s ambitious twentysomethings. Beleaguered at work and no longer so starry-eyed, Lucy Jo is considering heading back to the Midwest. Enter Wyatt Hayes, a well-born and newly single PhD student, who decides to prove that anyone can breathe that rarefied Park Avenue air—and makes Lucy Jo his hypothesis.

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Excerpt of The Overnight Socialite

The Decade in Covers: Pick the Best V.F. Cover of 2008

The April 2008 cover of Vanity Fair.In April 2008, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Sarah Silverman—dressed as the three graces of comedy—picked up Christopher Hitchens’s gauntlet to prove that, yes, women are funny. As the aughties give way to the teens, VF.com asks you to vote for the magazine’s 10 best covers of the decade, one for each year. Today, pick your favorite among the 12 covers of 2008. See a slide show of covers after the jump and vote for your favorite.

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The Decade in Covers: Pick the Best V.F. Cover of 2008

Which Shirtless Twilight Hunk is Your Hardtop Convertible?

This isn’t as stupid a question as it seems. While flitting about the country recently, I had the opportunity to sample three metal-roofed, two-door vehicles, all of which featured tops that retracted at the push of a button. And while attempting to come up with a pithy and creative rubric for comparing these convertibles (as is the Stick Shift way), I realized three things: a) the cars were all pretty good lookin’ b) the bifurcation/dualism endemic in their nature reminded me of certain creatures who, to quote a famed emperor of darkness, “crawl in search of blood/to terrorize y’alls neighborhood,” and c) I like thinking about hot dudes that remove their tops at my command. Voila: This Twilight hottie template. I’m going to insert some sacrilege here: I didn’t really like the first Twilight movie. I’m all about delayed gratification. But, in my opinion, the only thing that exemplifies a greater sense of deferred satisfaction than watching baseball is watching vampires not bite people, and this movie held up as one of its centerpieces non-biting vampires playing baseball. Bo-ring! However, I have high hopes for the sequel, mainly because it looks like it will feature more male nudity. Now, onto the cars and their correlative stars.

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Which Royal’s Crown Has Diamonds that Give Beyonce a Run for her Rocks

Fabled celebrity photographer Mario Testino, who snapped iconic portraits of Princess Diana, has revealed he hopes to photograph would-be royal Kate Middleton as soon as he can “pin her down.” This is not the first time the photographer has been linked to Kate, Prince William’s longtime flame. Last year, inaccurate rumors suggested the portraitist would train Kate in his art. Testino, whose work frequently appears in Vanity Fair, was presented with the Medal of Excellence by British luxury advocates Walpole earlier this week.

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Which Royal’s Crown Has Diamonds that Give Beyonce a Run for her Rocks

Guantánamo Detainees in the Land of Lincoln

I don’t get it. America has a long, rich tradition of tolerating the close presence of its most depraved sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, who sit in neighboring prisons by the millions. We sleep well at night, at least most of us do, knowing that brutal murderers, vicious rapists and child molesters are being guarded one or ten or one hundred miles down the road. One of the biggest growth industries of the past generation has been well advertised on daytime television: “criminal justice specialists.” As 2008 began, the Bureau of Prisons and Justice Department tell us, more than 2.3 million adults were held in U.S prisons or jails—one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world. If that figure has gone down in 2009 it is only because the recession has forced broke states to push for the early release of non-violent offenders or those whose terms are almost up. As David Cole so eloquently put it recently , America is swarming with prisoners. A new prison opens each week in the country.

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Tim Burton on His MoMA Exhibition: "It’s a Bit Morbid"

Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton, and Danny DeVito. From PatrickMcMullan.com. How does Tim Burton feel about having a retrospective of his life’s work while he is still alive? “It’s a bit morbid,” said the director, standing on the second floor of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. “But I love morbidity, so it’s fitting.” Behind him, guests were filing to their seats at a lavish dinner in his honor. Among them were his wife, Helena Bonham Carter (who, like the filmmaker, appeared to have styled her hair with a cherry bomb), Burton’s frequent collaborator Johnny Depp, Anna Wintour, the Olsen twins, Brooke Shields, designer Zac Posen, actress Gabourey Sidibe, and Burton’s go-to composer, Danny Elfman. After dinner, the beau monde ambled through the extensive exhibition on the museum’s third floor, which contains around 700 works from Burton’s singular imagination. The creations range from concept art and sketchbooks to props and puppets for his animated and live-action films. Over 30 years and more than 15 movies—including Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd—Burton has created an immediately identifiable world. It is populated by characters who look undead, or at least poorly rested. His creatures are skittish, gaunt, and pointy. His skies are gray and his trees leafless, except for when they’re blindingly blue and green, and then it’s even eerier.

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November 2009: Bruce Weber on Robert Pattinson

As Twilight’ s reluctant bloodsucker, Vanity Fair’ s December cover star has made teenage girls (and their mothers) swoon. To accompany Evgenia Peretz’s profile, which addresses Pattinson’s relationship with co-star Kristen Stewart and Hollywood’s doubts about casting him as Edward Cullen, VF.com presents the third of five slide shows featuring outtakes from his epic session with photographer Bruce Weber.

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November 2009: Bruce Weber on Robert Pattinson

Michael Hogan spotlights Vampire Weekend

The indie rockers of Vampire Weekend slyly riff on their prepster image for a second album, Contra.

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James Wolcott on Reality Television

Amid the smoldering wreckage of the popular culture, the author blames Reality TV, which has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior, and murder.

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Now We Know Why the Yankees Wear Blue

November 4, 2009; November 4, 2008. Getty Images. Forget C.C. Sabathia, Mark Texeira, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez’s post-‘roids revival. Want to know the real reason the Yankees broke through after a nine-year drought and won the World Series Wedensday night? Take a look at this list of the Yankees’ Series wins since 1960 and see if you can spot the underlying trend: 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009. Yes, that’s right: since the end of the Eisenhower era, the Yankees have only won championships when a Democrat was in the White House. There were two wins under John Kennedy, another two under Jimmy Carter, a whopping four under Bill Clinton, and now—after a dismal eight-years marked by preemptive war, regressive economic policies, and Red Sox victories—a fresh championship clinched a year to the day after Obama’s election. Ironic then that George Steinbrenner was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon in 1972. One hopes the Steinbrenner family has learned its lesson.

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