Madame Sutton Has a Heart

“Emma’s Table”

Philip Galanes

Review by Suzanne McNear

(10/28/2008)    Emma Sutton, barely rid of her prison garb but trimmer by 15 pounds (the diet in the tank having been more effective than a spa stay), is already on a tear; her heels are clack-clacking on the miles of concrete floor of New York’s FitzCooper auction house, where she is preparing to play a few tricks and set herself in the winning position for a successful bid on a Nakashima table.

    For those not acquainted with such a table, there is prompt enlightenment. No ordinary table, the Nakashima offers “two long slabs of honeyed English walnut, with fluid edges — not all squared off — and a swirling grain pattern, like so many drops of motor oil on a rain puddle, a whirling taffeta made of wood.” Well, who wouldn’t want it?

    It happens that Mr. whatever his name is (Emma can never get a name straight), a tiny Japanese man who registers as a kind of annoying fly on the floor, also desires said table for his wife.

    And we are immediately sympathetic. He should have it, but he is no match for Madame Sutton. Her whole life has been devoted to winning, to acquiring, to seeking perfection, to building a business, to being temporarily reduced to confinement, humiliation, bad press, etc., all because of some stupid little tax return that should not have bothered anyone.

    Mr. Tanaguchi, a diplomat, may not be up to her shenanigans, but he is no fool either. He will bide his time. And Emma? She will feel, for the first time in her life, just a twinge when her high bid secures her prize.

    This was new territory for her, she thought. The business of caring. Yes, the end justified the means, but for once she does feel an ounce of something like compassion for the loser.

    This is great fun, and really, as it develops, more than just a take on Martha Stewart. Philip Galanes is very amusing when he attends to Emma’s ways in his new novel, “Emma’s Table,” but he also develops an appealing story that touches on characters and worlds far from the Park Avenue, granite-kitchen world where Sunday night suppers are dreamed up, and where, in due time, everyone will gather.

    So we have Emma’s adorable weekend assistant, Benjamin, a somewhat inept school social worker, and his snippy yoga teacher girlfriend, whose major concern is a straight back and long neck. Dependent upon Benjamin for help is Gracie Santiago, a miserable, rotund, lonely child who makes valentines for everyone in her class, and is lucky to receive one.

    Gracie has a serious eating problem, but her mother, who also needs help, or at least someone to talk to, is caught up in a familiar school, social worker, single-parent web that is not helpful to anyone. Benjamin mistakenly labels Mrs. Santiago as a troublemaker, an enabler who encourages her daughter’s eating habits, thus quickly making a bad situation worse. 

    Added to this mix is Emma’s ex-husband, Bobby, a very winning prodigal who decides to come home to stay, but keeps a secret place of his own to retreat to. Emma’s discovery of what she presumes will be a love nest is done with a delicious comic spin. The lobby of his building is slick and shiny, the floors are appalling, and the ugly, milky glass! What were they thinking, she wonders.

    But, upon breaking and entering, she finds an apartment whose good taste very nearly meets with her approval. The kilim chair, the velvet drapes, hmm. How could this be? “Her husband’s apartment defied her expectations. Every item looked chosen with care — fabrics rich and tweedy, the tables cut from a forest of burnished wood. She recognized some of the pieces from so long ago that she had only the vaguest memories of them; others she didn’t remember at all. And I’ve got a mind like a steel trap, she thought — when it comes to furniture.” It is a turning point to relish when it dawns on her that she may have failed to consider her husband’s need to be treated with dignity. Not a small step to take.

    As the novel sails along, worlds mix, complications arise, as they must in a comedy. Troublemakers and the most needy confront each other, and in due time solutions emerge and good wins out. All concerned finally meet for one of Emma’s Sunday night suppers around that prized Nakashima table. She even includes her estranged daughter, who is having her first romance with a dog trainer who has bad skin, which Emma notices, but decides to live with.

    Included in this last supper are Mr. and Mrs. Tanaguchi, the charming couple who turn out to be the U.N. consul general and his wife. Though Emma likens them to kittens she would like to put into her pocket, she learns one final lesson. Lording it over them “like a well-groomed Joan of Arc, heading off to battle in a camel-colored twin set,” she pauses just long enough to discover that Mr. T. had her number from the start. He realized she had someone bidding against him at the auction, but she didn’t steal the table out from under him. It was all quite simple. He chose to stop bidding.

     Mr. Galanes’s accomplishment, in addition to his comic take on matters, is his ability to infuse the novel with a generosity of spirit toward all. The moments of misunderstanding between husband and wife, between a single parent and a child longing for love, between young couples searching for a way to make it all work are wonderfully drawn, and in the end, touching and memorable.

    At the end of the book, the reader does think about this diverse crew coming together around Emma’s table, and would not at all mind taking a seat there too.