New York, New York, circa 1958: Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell

It's always fun to read a book in which you recognize places you've been... and this novel, set in 1958 Manhattan, was chock-full of scenes set in familiar restaurants and bars, some of which still survive. For a time, the lead female character, Eden Katz, even lived where I did when I first moved to the city (no, not in 1958) – the Barbizon Hotel for Women, which was located at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street. The author has done a good job of capturing the nuances of Manhattan life, as it was back then and remained until around the mid-80s, when the city began to recover from its slide into the bankruptcy, crime and blackouts that marked the 70s.

The main characters are involved in the publishing world during the heart of the period that was chronicled so well in the eight seasons of Mad Men. There was not too much difference in the way that business was conducted in the big publishing houses and the leading ad agencies. Men, white Christian men, made the money and the decisions, and nearly all the women were secretaries. Jews were barely tolerated, and African-Americans hardly ever appeared in such rarified settings.

Eden Katz came to New York from Ft. Wayne, Indiana with dreams of becoming an editor. Cliff Nelson is the son of one of those very successful editors and is living a beatnik lifestyle in the Village while he tries to write but gets distracted by the temptations all around him. Miles Tillman grew up in Harlem, is a scholarship student at Columbia and a bicycle messenger, and is trying to find out more about his deceased father, a veteran of both World Wars and a member of an honored African-American troop. How these disparate people intersect is the story and it is quite the page-turner, very much in the tradition of mid-century chroniclers of New York, with a little Herman Wouk and John Cheever, and a lot of Rona Jaffe, and perhaps a few others thrown into the mix.

It kept my interest and the movie marquees started lighting up as I read. It's a good book for a rainy long weekend, a little old-fashioned yet still contemporary... since young people hoping to make it big in their chosen profession continue to come to New York. I hope they always will.

PS: one annoying anachronism that should have been caught by the editor – nobody addressed women as "Ms" in 1958. You were Miss or Mrs. and there were no other choices.