Ele­ments of Style, Wendy Wasserstein’s first, and sad­ly last, nov­el, takes place in post 9/11 New York City. The chap­ters are named for each of the novel’s char­ac­ters as the sto­ry pro­gress­es through their points of view. Dr. Frankie Weiss­man, vot­ed top pedi­a­tri­cian by Man­hat­tan mag­a­zine, is the lik­able, moral cen­ter of the tale. An Upper East Side do-good­er and Ivy League grad­u­ate, she has just moved her suc­cess­ful prac­tice to Fifth Avenue at 102nd St. to accom­mo­date her two very dif­fer­ent class­es of patients, the wealthy uptown socialites and low­er-income Harlem res­i­dents. Although NYC res­i­dents are still reel­ing from the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al upheavals caused by the ter­ror­ist attack and ner­vous­ly antic­i­pate anoth­er such event, fundrais­ing celebri­ty galas and high-end con­sumerism are busi­ness as usu­al and eager­ly high­light­ed by the press. The world of prep schools, sea­son­al homes, ele­gant din­ing and enter­tain­ment, cou­ture and der­ma­to­log­ic improve­ments by the nou­veau riche are described at length by Ms. Wasser­stein, record­ing both intel­lec­tu­al and vapid con­ver­sa­tion with the skill we know so well from her plays. Ele­ments of Style is the name of the favorite book of Frankie’s immi­grant friend, Jil Tail­lou, who has a hid­den past. He trea­sures the Strunk and White clas­sic, which he used to per­fect his Eng­lish skills and there­by assim­i­late per­fect­ly into Amer­i­can soci­ety. Rem­i­nis­cent of The Bon­fire of the Van­i­ties and Edith Wharton’s social com­men­taries of New York life, this is a very quick read which I can eas­i­ly imag­ine per­formed on the stage.