The plot of “The Romantics,” a new novel by Galt Niederhoffer, unfolds during the weekend wedding of Lila Hayes, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy Yale graduate, and her former classmate Tom McDevon, a handsome, charming, social-climbing cipher. The book’s heroine—the clever, ill-at-ease, Brooklyn-dwelling Laura Rosen—was Lila’s college roommate and is now her maid of honor; Laura dated Tom first, and, unbeknownst to the gilded Waspy bride, has for years sustained an intimacy with the groom-to-be. In the book’s first chapter, Laura arrives at the nuptial site (an island off the coast of Maine) burdened by an unflattering pewter-colored gown and a heart filled with loathing for her best friend. Inevitably, romantic chaos ensues.

A party to celebrate the book’s publication was held the other day at the home of Niederhoffer’s friend Kathryn Tucker, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy movie producer, who hosted guests on the roof of her Chelsea town house. The dress code was “slutty bridesmaid or slurring groomsman,” but Tucker had ignored her own injunction, and was dressed in a flattering strapless dress the color of sea foam and red patent-leather Louboutin pumps with four-inch heels. “Look at me—it’s conservative, conservative, conservative, and then the red pumps,” Tucker said, as she elegantly navigated the treacherous decking underfoot, wineglass in hand.

Tucker has never been a bridesmaid, she said, “but I hope to be one day. It seems the better role.” She is separated from her husband, John Sloss, a sales agent for independent films. “The institution of marriage is a curious thing,” she said, with a sad smile and a tilt of the head. “It’s a noble ideal.” Theirs has been an amicable parting—“We’re best buds,” she insisted—and Sloss now lives in the lower half of the town house, which the couple bought in 2004 for a little more than five million dollars, while Tucker and their two small children live upstairs. “It’s like the perfect bohemian existence, except not,” she said.

Tucker recalled that she had disliked Sloss intensely when she first met him, during a dinner at Chasen’s, in Los Angeles, twelve years ago. “As I was leaving, I had a premonition that I was going to marry that guy,” she said. “I kept trying to shake him. He told a friend of mine that he had fallen ‘deeply and irrevocably in love’ with me. I am a sucker for romantic gestures—I am Jane Austen’s biggest fan.” They were married at their farmhouse in Columbia County. “I had my dream wedding,” she said. “My flowers were thistles—prickly things. The gift we gave people to take home was a jar of blueberry jam, and on the label it said, ‘How do I get out of this jam?’ Which was not a very auspicious start. I wore Vivienne Westwood. Richard Linklater’s daughter came and read a sonnet. My dog Rosy was in the wedding. She wore a thistle collar. It was very me.” Was it also very him, she was asked. Tucker paused. “I have no idea,” she said. “Herein lies the problem.”

Niederhoffer, who wore a flattering violet-colored gown and teetering black patent pumps, was circulating among her guests with an air of modest gratitude. “The Romantics” is her second novel; her first, “A Taxonomy of Barnacles,” has been described by reviewers as a fictionalized chronicle of her experience growing up as the clever, ill-at-ease daughter of the eccentric investor Victor Niederhoffer, who named her for Francis Galton, the Victorian anthropologist and the coiner of the term eugenics. Niederhoffer is thirty-two and is a producer of independent movies as well as a novelist. She lives in a brownstone in Cobble Hill with her partner, Jim Strouse, and their children, Magnolia, three, and Grover, one. Magnolia is named for the West Village bakery where the couple met. “I was a customer, and he was a trusty icer, recently off the turnip truck,” Niederhoffer recalled. “I was a brazen New York JAP, and he was a totally oblivious rube from the Midwest. I picked him up. It was a horribly tawdry beginning. He told me his name was Jim and his brother was Tim, and I thought, He’s really from a different planet.”

The couple have been engaged since before Niederhoffer was pregnant with Magnolia but have no immediate plans to marry. “I come from the kind of family where marriage has not exactly spelled success,” she said. Victor Niederhoffer and his first wife, Gail, divorced after the birth of Galt and her sister Katie; he went on to have four more daughters with his second wife, Susan. Three years ago, he conceived another child with his longtime paramour, Laurel Kenner. “In a way, my book party is my wedding,” Niederhoffer said. “This is a better thing to aspire to, isn’t it? To be celebrated for your intelligence and your talent, rather than for your size-two beauty.”

With the sun setting over the Hudson, Niederhoffer, who by now had removed her shoes, like a bride after three hours on the dance floor, gave a toast, offering particular thanks to Kathryn Tucker: “The gorgeous blonde. So glamorous. So lovely.” Tucker was still standing effortlessly in her red pumps, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t had anything to eat. “It’s just like a wedding,” she said, as a waitress came by with an empty tray. “You get drunk and you forget to eat, and you don’t have that great a night.” The waitress returned with a tray of spring rolls, but Tucker declined, with another tilt of the head and a sorry smile, as if discouraging a suitor with a polite, insincere show of regret.

加特·尼德霍夫的新作《浪漫》的故事情節(jié)是在萊拉·海耶斯周末的婚禮上展開(kāi)的。海耶斯是個(gè)金發(fā)美女，一名聰明而又富貴的耶魯大學(xué)研究生。她以前的同班同學(xué)湯姆·麥克德文是一個(gè)帥氣迷人而又愛(ài)攀龍附鳳的人。該小說(shuō)的女主角——居住在布魯克林的智慧而不安分的羅拉·羅斯——是萊拉的大學(xué)室友，也是她如今的伴娘。羅拉在認(rèn)識(shí)有錢人海耶斯之前就和湯姆交往過(guò)，又和現(xiàn)在的準(zhǔn)新郎也維持過(guò)幾年的親密關(guān)系。小說(shuō)的第一章，羅拉穿著笨重的、令人難受的藍(lán)灰色禮服來(lái)到婚禮現(xiàn)場(chǎng)（離緬因州不遠(yuǎn)的一個(gè)島上），她的內(nèi)心充滿了對(duì)好友的憎恨。很顯然，浪漫氣息接踵而來(lái)。

幾天前，尼德霍夫在好朋友凱瑟琳·塔克家里舉辦了一個(gè)慶祝小說(shuō)出版的派對(duì)。凱瑟琳也是個(gè)金發(fā)美女，聰明有財(cái)富，電影制片人。她在切爾西城內(nèi)的住宅頂樓招待賓客。當(dāng)晚的著裝要求是要么帶猥瑣性質(zhì)的伴娘裝，要么帶詆毀性質(zhì)的伴郎裝。但是塔克自己卻不顧這個(gè)要求，當(dāng)晚她身穿著一條漂亮的海藍(lán)色吊帶連衣裙，腳穿一雙著名的盧博婷四英寸跟的紅色漆皮單鞋。她手握著葡萄酒杯，優(yōu)雅的指著腳下的裝飾，說(shuō)道，“看看我，這兒保守，這兒保守，保守，以及這雙紅色單鞋”。

塔克從來(lái)沒(méi)有做過(guò)伴娘，她說(shuō)，“我希望有一天能做伴娘，看上去這是個(gè)更好的角色”。她和身為獨(dú)立影片銷售代理人的丈夫約翰·斯洛斯已經(jīng)分居。她歪著頭憂傷的笑著說(shuō)，“婚姻真是奇妙”。他們的婚姻已經(jīng)有了一個(gè)友好的結(jié)束。“我們是最好的朋友”她強(qiáng)調(diào)道。現(xiàn)在斯洛斯住下面一半的樓層，而塔克和她兩個(gè)小孩則住上半部分樓層。這棟房子是他們兩夫妻在零四年花了不到五百萬(wàn)美元買下的。她又說(shuō)道，“不排除的話，我們很像波西米亞居住方式”。

塔克回憶十二年前，她在洛杉磯蔡斯家的宴會(huì)上第一次見(jiàn)斯洛斯時(shí)，就對(duì)他喜歡得不得了。“當(dāng)我離開(kāi)時(shí)，我就預(yù)感我會(huì)嫁給這個(gè)男人”，她說(shuō)道，“我不停的跟他握手，他跟我一個(gè)朋友說(shuō)他已經(jīng)無(wú)可救藥地深深地愛(ài)上了我。我是個(gè)超級(jí)喜歡浪漫的人——我很迷簡(jiǎn)·奧斯丁的作品”。后來(lái)，他們?cè)诟鐐惐葋喛さ霓r(nóng)場(chǎng)別墅結(jié)婚。她說(shuō)，“我得到了我夢(mèng)想般的婚禮，花是多刺的蒼紫花，我們給賓朋帶回家的禮物是一罐藍(lán)莓醬，商標(biāo)上寫(xiě)著‘我怎么離開(kāi)這罐果醬呢？’這可不是一個(gè)很吉利的婚宴開(kāi)端啊！我穿著維維恩·韋斯特伍德設(shè)計(jì)的禮服。理查德·林克萊特的女兒也帶著她的十四行詩(shī)來(lái)參加我們的婚禮。我的狗兒羅斯也在婚禮上，她帶著薊項(xiàng)圈，她就像我一樣”。當(dāng)被問(wèn)到狗兒是否也像他時(shí)，塔克停頓了下，說(shuō)，“我不知道，這也隱埋了我們倆的問(wèn)題”。

尼德霍夫穿著一件漂亮的紫羅蘭色的禮服和一雙寬大的黑色專利單鞋，帶謙遜的感激之情走進(jìn)賓客之中。《浪漫》是她的第二部小說(shuō)，她的第一部小說(shuō)《刑具分類》已經(jīng)被評(píng)論家評(píng)為她自己的成長(zhǎng)小說(shuō)。她自小就聰明而不安分，父親維克托·尼德霍夫是個(gè)古怪的投資者，他給女兒取名為弗朗西斯·加特——維多利亞人類學(xué)家和優(yōu)生法的創(chuàng)造者。尼德霍夫現(xiàn)年三十二歲，獨(dú)立電影制片人，也是一名小說(shuō)家。她和丈夫吉姆·斯特勞斯以及兩個(gè)小孩（三歲的瑪格諾麗亞和一歲的格洛佛）住在科博爾山鎮(zhèn)的赤竭色砂石高級(jí)住宅里。瑪格諾麗亞是以西村的一個(gè)面包房店名而命名的，這是他倆夫婦相遇的地方。“當(dāng)時(shí)我是一名顧客，他是一名可靠的裝冰工人，剛離開(kāi)裝著蕪青的卡車”，尼德霍夫回憶，“我可是一名響當(dāng)當(dāng)?shù)募~約大作家，而他很明顯是一個(gè)來(lái)自中西部的鄉(xiāng)巴佬。不過(guò)我讓他搭車了，這是個(gè)非常庸俗的開(kāi)端。他告訴我他叫吉姆，他哥哥叫蒂姆。我想他真是來(lái)自另外一個(gè)星球的人”。

他們?cè)谀岬禄舴驊焉犀敻裰Z麗亞前就已經(jīng)訂婚了，但他們還沒(méi)有立即結(jié)婚的打算。她說(shuō)，“我出身一個(gè)婚姻失敗的家庭”。當(dāng)時(shí)，父親維克托·尼德霍夫和他的第一任妻子蓋爾在加特和她姐姐出生后離婚了，后來(lái)與第二任妻子蘇珊生了四個(gè)小孩。三年以后，他和他多年的情婦羅瑞爾·肯娜爾又懷了另一個(gè)孩子。“從某種程度上說(shuō)，我小說(shuō)里的派對(duì)就是我的婚禮”，尼德霍夫說(shuō)道，“這是一件更令人渴望的好事，不是嗎？不是為了你不錯(cuò)的美貌，而是為了你的智慧和才能而慶祝。

當(dāng)太陽(yáng)升上哈得遜河岸時(shí)，已經(jīng)脫掉了鞋的尼德霍夫像是一個(gè)在舞池當(dāng)中跳了三個(gè)小時(shí)舞的新娘，她向大家祝酒，特別提出了對(duì)凱瑟琳·塔克的感激，“感謝這位漂亮的金發(fā)碧眼女人，你太迷人了，太可愛(ài)了”。塔克仍然穿著那雙輕松的紅色單鞋，盡管她什么東西都沒(méi)有吃。“這就像是一場(chǎng)婚禮”，一個(gè)女侍應(yīng)走過(guò)來(lái)拿走空托盤(pán)時(shí)，尼德霍夫說(shuō)，“你喝酒了，但是你忘記吃東西了，所以你并沒(méi)度過(guò)一個(gè)美好的晚上”。這時(shí)侍應(yīng)端過(guò)來(lái)一盤(pán)春卷，但是塔克拒絕了。她又是歪著頭，抱歉的一笑，好像是禮貌而又不太真誠(chéng)地回絕一個(gè)追求者。