"Quiet Street is an exquisitely rendered horror story about American inequity, and how it mindlessly, immorally, reproduces itself. Unlike most such stories, however, this one left me believing in the possibility (and necessity) of drastic change. Nick McDonell writes with a scalpel in one hand, and in the other, a bushel of grace." — Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom

“Quiet Street is a bracingly frank, clear-eyed chronicle of McDonell’s ultra-privileged golden youth in tThe Bubble, as he calls it, and his ongoing searcher how he ought to use or forego some of that privilege. If everyone this fortunate examined their lives this thoughtfully, the world would be better off.” — Kurt Andersen

“[As] McDonell illuminates a rarified world of money, power, and connections, he also offers candidly sobering insight into the systemic cultural mechanisms designed to protect long-standing social inequalities. An eloquent and compelling study.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Nick McDonell wrote Quiet Street long before the debate about legacy college admissions became front page news—and before the release last month of a study by three Harvard researchers showing how money, not ability, is the surest indicator of who will get into Ivy League universities and go on to become CEOs. But his book arrives at an auspicious moment when public conversation about privilege and opportunity is long on statistics and policy papers but short on first-person accounts.” —Norman Vanamee, Town&Country

Slim but piercing study of classism in America. Journalist and novelist McDonell (The Council of Animals) excavates his own privileged Manhattan upbringing in this slim but piercing study of classism in America. Though he fondly remembers his formative experiences at elite private schools in New York, and later at Harvard and Oxford universities, McDonell characterizes the culture of these institutions as a "superficial meritocracy" masking profound entitlement. He describes "The Bubble" that ensconced him and his prep school peers and the methods by which they reconciled the cognitive dissonance of their position at the top of the social hierarchy with their education’s purported values of "kindness, fairness, [and] generosity." These reflections support the author’s assertion—underscored at the end of the book through conversations with former classmates—that it is not loss of wealth that America’s elite fear most from reform, but rather a loss of self tied to that wealth… an earnest and stinging examination of the mindset of the upper class. — Publisher’s Weekly

McDonell (The Council of Animals) tells the story of growing up in New York City’s wealthy and influential Upper East Side, where he enjoyed all the privileges of sailing lessons, trips to the Met, and holidays in private jets. Those not in his social group—mostly impoverished suburbanites who weren’t white—were considered outsiders, and he ignored their existence. This work is a bold, moving description of the white ruling class of the American elite and how they unjustly maintain and pass on their privileges to their children. The author’s fear is that the one percent in the United States will never have any serious thoughts about how to bring equality to all. The author notes they have been and remain unexposed and ignorant of those “others” and therefore lack any interest in their lives and fates. The book suggests that conversations between these divided groups could lead to better understanding and empathy for everyone. He bases this theory on his personal awakening when, as a reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan, he had an eye-opening revelation about people and a world he did not know existed. VERDICT Will likely appeal to general readers. It belongs in all social and behavioral sciences collections.—Claude Ury, Library Journal