J.C. Conklin The Dallas Women's Guide to Gold-Digging with Prid

The Dallas Women's Guide to Gold-Digging with Pride

J.C. Conklin

Ballantine, May 2007, $22.95

ISBN: 0345492943

The Wall Street Journal sends almost thirty, Manhattanite Jennifer Barton to work at the Dallas bureau. While there her boyfriend Rafe dumps her for a much older wealthier married witch. Outraged she asks her roommate Aimee to explain why he would drop pretty miss compatibility like her for a snake with a spouse. Aimee explains once a Tall Texan always Tall Texan. Jenny vows to become a Tall Texan with Aimee offering to mentor her in what matters unlike her fortyish shrew of boss at work Carol Becker who wants her booted back east. The native also explains the rule that you marry wealth symbolized by a rock of Gibraltar stone, divorce wealth and remarry more wealth with a rock the size of Everest until you hit the pinnacle in which males seek to marry your wealth; Aimee is at phase two.

Jenny begins her quest to become the greatest tall cottoner ever. She hides her Jewish genes when she goes to the prime meat zone, a Baptist wedding while trying to do her day job. As she adjusts at work and more important on the money gold-digging hunt she begins to wonder whether you can take the New Yorker out of New York but can you take the New York out of a New Yorker.

This satirical chick lit tale is at its best when Jenny acts like an ugly American stunned by the culture and customs of a foreign country; the tale loses its keenness when the jokes turn Texan. Jenny is fun to follow as she learns first hand the local societal order so different from what she thought her knowledge based on TV reruns. Sub-genre fans will overall enjoy Jenny's escapades in what seems to her is a third world nation.

Harriet Klausner