Hampton Style - July 13, 2007 - The Manny Diaries

Best-selling author Holly Peterson spills on Park Avenue sexcapades, Hamptons houseguests, and scoring a manny.

by Deborah Schoeneman
Photographed by Jessica Craig-Martin

In mid June, Water Mill resident Holly Peterson launched her debut novel, The Manny, with considerable buzz across every major magazine and numerous television programs

--even in a saucy YouTube video featuring Tinsley Mortimer, Karen Duffy, Carole Radziwill, and Jennifer Creel. For that week, you'd have to be living under water to not hear about The Manny--but even there you might have heard about it from John "Sunshine" Margaritis, the surf instructor who also happens to be Peterson's manny.

Just don't ask Peterson if the 21-year-old athletic and boyish Sunshine was inspiration for the manny of her novel, who let's just say offers services beyond babysitting. "It's important to remember that this is a work of fiction," says Peterson on a sunny morning on the beach near Southampton Bathing Corporation, where she likes to surf the sandbar. "I hired Sunshine after I wrote this book."

In real life, Peterson--the daughter of financier Pete Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group--is married to banker Rick Kimball, and they have three children. Four years ago, she hired her first manny to do guy stuff with her son. "They play Xbox, Monopoly, poker, football, and baseball, and they skateboard together," says Peterson, who is also a contributing editor at Newsweek and a former producer for ABC News. "I thought it would be fantastic to hire a college kid to play in the park in the afternoon with my kids, rather than sending them to a bunch of different frenetic afternoon activities."

Since writing the definitive book on mannyhood, she's positioned herself as somwhat of an expert. Friends keep asking Peterson for manny recommendations, particularly during the summer months when kids need extra entertaining. She also gets asked some personal questions about the nature of her relationship with Sunshine.

"First people ask me if he's hot," she says. "Then they ask me if my husband is freaked out. And when I say, 'Sunshine is cool, smart, and very young, and it isn't that way, and it was my husband's idea to hire him anyway,' they ask, 'Okay, then, why did he want this?' And I say, 'Because it's fun to have an older guy running around the house; especially one with that great, fun, relaxed surfer vibe. And he acts as my assistant half of the time. He wants to learn about business and the working world so he helps with my research for books and articles. Throughout this launch, he's learned a lot about the media landscape in New York, so he's intrigued by that world, too."

Well, Hampton Style thinks that Sunshine is pretty hot, but we digress.

Your book has some racy sex scenes. What was your inspiration and motivation?
I wanted my book to pop on many levels, but I also wanted the main character to be extremely relatable to women all over the country. There's a tremendous amount of romantic tension between the mother and manny. I couldn't possibly write a book about a manny on Park Avenue without a steamy oral-sex scene in a linen closet with Pratesi cocktail napkins fluttering down as the character climaxes.

Have you ever heard of anyone who has had an affair with her manny?
I do have a friend who made it halfway across the George Washington Bridge with her manny but then turned around when they hit New Jersey.

I think the problem is they were going to New Jersey. Did you give your book to some friends before it was published, to make sure they were okay with the material? Were you worried about being banned from the playground?
I think it's intellectually lazy to write about rich people as being silly or vapid or not having perspective. It's much more fun as a writer to challenge myself and, in turn, the reader, with complex characters who you can't figure out right away. You think maybe you don't like them at first, but then you get sucked into rooting for them and become attached to them. A lot of the book is inspired from the conversation that goes on between women at private school drop-off and pick-up. It's not based on any of the schools that my kids go to. It's more those prissy, all-boys and all-girls schools with a pretty homogenous crowd.

Did you use anyone you know as inspiration for characters?
There are a lot of potential comedic lines to pick up when you are talking to a rich person who, for once, isn't trying to hide her money. Most people in New York try to pretend like they're saving money because they don't take a private car, they take a taxi, or they take the subway once in a while. It's usually all bullshit. So when you talk to a Park Avenue princess who has tons of money, like so many people do on the Upper East Side, and she says, "If I can't wear heels then I'm not interested," it makes you like her. Even though she's living in a whacked-out stratosphere of crazy wealth, there's a big part of her that's very real because she's not playing social games with you.

Are there any specific women who became characters?
No, but there are certain women that I look at; like Aerin Lauder, who I think is the Babe Paley of our generation. She is just so gorgeous and stylish. It's in her blood. It is in the way she walks. It is in the way she holds her bag. There is a great sledding hill off 72nd street and Fifth. On snowy days, all the moms show up wearing snow pants and down jackets. Aerin Lauder wears a black Polo skisuit. The butt looks perfect. Her waist is perfect. And on top of it, she's wearing some huge, Chanel snow-chalet ski glasses. And she just walks in like, "No big deal." We all want to kill ourselves. So it's that type of feeling that is portrayed in the book. Aerin isn't an actual character because I don't know her personality well enough to make her a character. But it's just that feeling of being around these women that makes you feel inadequate all the time. The protagonist in my book is a mom from middle-class Minneapolis who marries an insufferable Park Avenue preppy. She feels insecure about her ability to fit in with the rich set, even though she's highly ambiguous about her desire to be with them. We all sometimes want to fit in and be accepted by people we don't necessarily like. I always say I don't necessarily want to go to the party, but I'm relieved to be invited.

I heard you originally wanted to call the book "Wheels Up."
I wanted to call the book "Wheels Up" because "Wheels Up" is the most obnoxious thing in the history of the planet. It's what all the rich people say when they want you to know that they're flying private, and you're not. They say, "It's wheels up at 3." Every time someone says that to me, I just want to smack that person. It's such a good taking-off point for a novel.

Right as your book launched, your dad was in the news for taking Blackstone public. Did your co-workers at Newsweek ask you about the company?
No, they would never. Newsweek is a serious institution. They're such high-end people, they would never in a million years ask me anything about something they know I couldn't talk about.

Are there friends of yours in the media that ask you about your dad? Are there any rules you have in regards to talking about him?
That's an easy answer for me--I'm not going to betray anyone in my family. But if I can help them with some kind of a story that somehow involves people that I know, I always try to help my writer friends. Sometimes people ask me for an introduction to my father for a business piece they are doing and 90 percent of the time, I call his office and say please consider talking to this person. I think most writers are decent people, and if they are doing a tough piece on him, they're not going to ask his daughter for an in.

What was it like having the Blackstone IPO launch the same day as your book?
It was like a bizarre media acid-trip. Friends were calling and asking about why a business channel like CNBC was running my YouTube video all day. I realized they were interspersing it with Blackstone IPO updates. While I'm very proud of my dad's professional success, and even more proud that he's making the unusual CEO move of giving away the entire $1.8 billion he's taking out of this deal to set up one of the largest family foundations in the country, all that Blackstone heat was a mixed bag. It increased attention to my book but I don't want people to say, "Oh, her father's rich so writing a novel was easy for her."

Now the movie has been optioned. Are you involved with writing the screenplay?
It's being written by Burr Steers, who wrote Igby Goes Down and knows the wealthy territory well. He's Gore Vidal's godson and is a very edgy, dark writer. And I'm glad they found someone like that to write it, instead of some pansy ass "Aren't rich people ridiculous?" writer. As for my involvement, the producers don't want me hovering over Burr; they say "You get two tickets to the premiere--now get out of our faces!"

Who would be Jamie if you had your dream casting pick?
Reese Witherspoon. The manny would have to be played by someone who isn't traditionally handsome but is hot because he is smart and funny. Maybe Owen Wilson.

What's your next book about?
It's going to be about an obsessive relationship. I've certainly had one in my twenties that almost put me over the deep-end in a big bad way. I woke up every day in tears for three years. And I see these relationships around me. And I think that whole phenomenon of not being able to have what you want, which drives a crazy obsession, is something very base and human. It's set in the Four Seasons Grill Room.

I used to Hampton in: "A monster share-house in the backwoods near the airport in East Hampton with my four brothers. It had white linoleum floors and was just indestructible. It had four big bedrooms and two tiny bedrooms and pull-out couches with air mattresses everywhere. We had a blast."
Now I Hampton in: "Water Mill, near Flying Point Beach."
I love to take the kids to: Pumpkin Town in Water Mill.
My favorite restaurant is: Mirko's in Water Mill: "It's the only place with excellent food."
My guilty Hamptons pleasure is: "A bacon, egg, and cheese from the Candy Kitchen. I eat it when I'm depressed or tired or I've been writing until 4 a.m."
Regular dinner-party guests: Ali Wentworth and George Stephanopoulos and my parents.
Regular houseguests: "Joel Schumacher always stays at my parents' house. He's kind of the best houseguest in the world. Andrea Wong who just took over Lifetime comes out a lot. My cousin Jay Peterson, who produced my YouTube video, comes out every single weekend."
Beach bag: Tory Burch
Designer I wear to the beach: Ralph Lauren
Bathing suit: Eres
Car: Black Suburban SUV
Workout: Surfing