Book Review: Admissions
Admissions by Nancy Lieberman 355 pp., hardcover Warner Books, 2004 by Marissa Guijarro Admissions is the wise-cracking story of the competitive world of private school admissions in New York City. Helen Drager, art curator and advisor, loses her sense of reality when it is time for her daughter, Zoe, to apply to private high schools. In the meantime, Helen’s friend, Sara, director of admissions at The School, negotiates the kindergarten admissions process for the first time in her career under the negligent and hostile supervision of a dallying supervisor, Pamela Rothschild, headmaster of the School. Helen’s focus becomes intolerable to both her virtuous daughter and faithful husband, Michael, a cooking show producer, and her most lucid moments surface while flirting with a prospective lover. Sara clings to her Midwestern sensibilities in a maelstrom of chaos and corruption at The School. Michael, in an effort to please Helen, mixes business with parenting while trying to secure a place for Zoe at the Fancy Pants School. The character we love to hate, Pamela, becomes further ensnared in …