December 2, 2005
What better target for satire than the McMansions looming over once fertile farmland? The SUVs of housing, monuments to hubris and overconsumption, these behemoths are familiar terrain for Galant, who writes a column on suburban life for the New York Times. In her smart and diverting first novel, she shrewdly parses the repercussions of this brazen misuse of precious land in a nimble and ironic comedy of errors featuring the materially ambitious Heather Peters and her dream house in a new development in New Jersey ludicrously named Galapagos Estates. Heather is dismissive of her lawyer husband, a horrible mother to her anxious third-grader son, and insultingly rude to Harlan White. The last native landowner left, aside from eco-minded Agnes, Harlan is valiantly resisting the aggressive tactics of unscrupulous developer Jack Barstad. Heather thinks she has found paradise, but when a timber rattler, a deadly and endangered species, appears on her patio, she soon finds herself in hell. Galant is hilarious and right on in this venomous comedy about nature, nurture, and the ecology of greed.
Donna Seaman
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