The Cosmopolitans: A Novel

Sarah Schulman's novel reimagines Balzac's *Cousin Bette* in 1950s New York City. Bette, a secretary at an advertising agency for thirty years, lives a solitary life alongside her neighbor Earl, a black gay actor working in a meatpacking plant. Both estranged from their families, they find companionship in each other and in New York. When Bette's wealthy niece Hortense arrives from Ohio to pursue an acting career, the dynamic shifts. Hortense's presence stirs memories of Bette's past and her estranged Midwestern family. As Hortense's ambitions create tension between Bette and Earl, Bette leverages her position in the television advertising world to exact revenge on those she feels have wronged her. Set in midcentury Manhattan before the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements, the novel explores the hopes and fragilities of its era through the relationship between its central characters.