A gallery girl’s cannily observed and whimsically acerbic romp through the glamorous Chelsea art scene

When figurative painter Jeffrey Finelli is run over by a cab in front of the Simon Pryce Gallery on the night of his first opening, the art world falls all over itself for a piece of the instantly in-demand work by the late “emerging artist.” At the center of the show is an enormous painting called Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him that becomes the object of most desire. As the artist philosophically muses before meeting his untimely end, “It represents the creative endeavor.”

After Finelli’s death, the gallery receptionist, aspiring artist and protagonist Mia McMurray, finds herself at the center of the art world’s most sensational story. For suddenly everyone wants Lulu. Mia, in her clever, clear-headed voice tells the ensuing tale, the details of which she finds endlessly amusing and unavoidably alluring. While she watches a Birkin-toting wannabe collector, a well-muscled Irish artist, a real estate baron, and niece/muse of the artist, Lulu Finelli, duke it out over the oversized piece, Mia, à la Holly Golightly, finds her own creative outlet and artistic identity, not to mention love.

As The Devil Wears Prada demystified the world of high fashion, Danielle Ganek’s delightfully funny and insightful first novel paints the oddly captivating New York City art scene as it exists today.