During his time as a
war correspondent for the Associated Press, Steve Hindy's interest in home brewing was sparked by a group of American diplomats he
met while he was working in the Middle East.
In The Red Book, her touching, provocative, whip - smart romp of a novel where The Big Chill
meets Mary McCarthy's The Group, Kogan begins with the Red Book entries for a group of roommates from the class of 1989 who are all headed for their 20th reunion weekend just as the financial and professional walls are crumbling around them: a self - made, childless securities broker, recently pink - slipped, eager to conceive a baby before her fertility window closes; a blue - blood «artist» and former lesbian, married to a writer's - blocked male novelist, living disingenuously and beyond their means off a no - longer - viable trust fund; a former actress, the star of every school production, who has become the stay - at - home wife to a famous Hollywood director; the adopted
war orphan, now a foreign
correspondent clinging to her dying industry, whose
war journalist husband has recently been killed.