Last Night at Chateau Marmont

Tuesday, 26 October 2010 15:40

It all started at Chateau Marmont in Lauren Weisberger’s newest novel, Last Night at Château Marmont, which was released in August by Simon & Schuster/Atria Books and retails for $25. The story follows the growing celebrity of once-normal couple Brooke and Julian Alter and allows us to ponder how we would handle our own celebrity if it came to be.

By Lane Nieset

Brooke Alter works two jobs as a nutritionist to support her husband, Julian, a cute musician she has loved since the first time she heard him play. Although Julian comes from a wealthy family, he refuses to take their handouts because they don’t support his dream of making it as a musician. Brooke loves working as a nutritionist and hopes to open her own practice one day, but for now she is trying to earn enough money to support her husband, as well as pay the rent at their downtown Manhattan apartment.

When Julian gets signed by Sony, there is a slight chance that he might make it as an artist, but Brooke doesn’t realize the possibility of Julian becoming a star until he is asked to perform on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Of course Brooke wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to see her husband perform on TV, or the chance to stay at the fabulous Chateau Marmont sipping Bloody Marys by the pool, so she has someone cover her work shifts and joins him.

This is just the beginning for Julian’s new career. Soon he is playing at Kristen Stewart’s birthday party and invited to perform at the Grammy’s. Although the newfound fame is surreal for Brooke, she has a different reaction than most people would think. Instead of jet setting with her husband, she wants to maintain some sense of stability with her job and home. The lines start to blur when the paparazzi drags Brooke into the gossip magazines, and she starts to miss too many days at work. As the couple gets labeled “JBro” and rumors start to circulate about their marriage being in trouble, Brooke begins to worry that maybe their relationships and lives have changed for the worst.

Brooke’s character, like other characters in Weisberger’s novels, is a normal woman who cares about her job and doesn’t know how to handle the new lifestyle she is being thrust into. Whereas many women might take advantage of their husband’s fame and money, she would prefers to focus on her job and the possibility of having a baby. She doesn’t want the expensive apartment in Tribeca or even the vacation to Italy. Brooke just wants her relationship to go back to normal. The suspense and gossip will have the reader begging to know what is going to happen next. Even though I kept thinking that Brooke should’ve gone to a spa or a crazy shopping spree to get through the awful tabloid rumors and tension with Julian, I loved that she handled it the way most of us girls do— with a few bottles of wine, a tub of Haagen-Dazs, and an amazing best friend to get her back on her feet.

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