A Reader’s Guide to Lizzie Lit
Books thrown at Grubman.
If she is remembered for nothing else, publicist Lizzie Grubman has proven inspirational to our nation’s young novelists. In Skinny-Dipping, by Melissa de la Cruz, she becomes Mitzi Goober, pronounced “Giubaire,” notable for her “muscular and bony arm.” Her accident: “She’d spent a month in jail after her teacup Chihuahua attacked an unsuspecting waitress’s fur-trimmed uniform vest.” In Trading Up, by Candace Bushnell, she goes by Roditzy Deardrum, who has “the bright stare of someone who won’t take no for an answer.” This time she “would end up in a French jail due to a freak boating accident . . . in which several of her friends would lose arms and legs during an Ecstasy fest.” And in The Trouble Boy, by Tom Dolby, there’s Ariana Richards, who has “straightened hair and an obvious nose job” and totals her mom’s car “while speeding back to the city from East Hampton.” Grubman, however, seems to have ambivalent feelings toward her fictionalized selves; a Lizzie-like character was excised from the final version of The Perfect Manhattan after Grubman’s company started repping the authors. Grubman says the change was their idea. “It just shows that people have one way of thinking about someone before they get to know them. When [they] actually got to know me, they thought they might want to change the book.”
—Emma Rosenblum