CANR
WORK TITLE: PINEAPPLE STREET
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Brooklyn
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME:
https://www.pineapplestreetbook.com/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; husband’s name Torrey Liddell (producer).
EDUCATION:Graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and editor. Alfred A. Knopf, vice president and executive editor.
WRITINGS
Picturestart media company acquired the rights to Pineapple Street to develop as a television series.
SIDELIGHTS
Jenny Jackson writes from life in her debut novel Pineapple Street, about the one-percenters living in the upscale Brooklyn Heights. Vice President and Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Jackson and her producer husband Torrey Liddell themselves purchased in 2022 a $4.2 million apartment in Brooklyn Heights from Tora Fisher, of the Fisher Brothers real estate family. The house features 2,455 square feet of indoor space, 550 square feet of outdoor space, four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms in a boutique building.
Named by Time magazine among the most anticipated books of 2023, Pineapple Street delves into the effects of generational wealth on three women. In the old money Stockton family, eldest child Darley gives up her lucrative banking job to lead an entitled if bored stay-at-home mommy lifestyle. Middle child Cord has married Sasha, a middle-class Rhode Island woman, and moved into the family’s four-story limestone in the elite Brooklyn Heights, where Sasha’s in-laws call her a gold digger even though she signed a prenuptial agreement. Youngest child Georgiana, the party girl, works for a nonprofit and is considered the do-gooder, yet she sleeps with her married boss. As the three children are set to inherit a fortune, they grapple with the meaning and privilege that comes with it. Picturestart media company acquired the rights to Pineapple Street to develop as a television series.
Jackson portrays the crazy rich WASPs with rich-people jokes, tennis clubs, sibling rivalry, and family tension. “Jackson has a deft hand with all the passive-aggressive interactions that are so common in family life, perhaps particularly in this socio-economic stratum,” declared a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. According to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, the characters, except for Sasha, are underdeveloped, with the Stockton matriarch delivering cartoonish lines about Sasha growing up poor, and the setting has a dusty feeling, nevertheless, “Jackson shines in her incisive observations about the ravages of contemporary real estate developments.”
Finding Pineapple Street ultimately unsatisfying and the characters taking time to evolve, reviewer Lucy Danser on the Lucy Danser blog nevertheless “thought Jackson did a fantastic job of creating a family that was both recognisable and unique,” adding that “in general Jackson showed a great depth of knowledge (or excellently done research) on a number of topics,” such as New York society, the property market, and the financial industry.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2023, review of Pineapple Street.
ONLINE
New York Post, https://nypost.com/ (March 25, 2022), Jennifer Gould, “‘Pineapple Street’ Author Jenny Jackson Buys $4.2M Slice of Brooklyn.”
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (January 15, 2022), review of Pineapple Street.
Jenny Jackson is a Vice President and Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf. A graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course, she lives in Brooklyn Heights with her family. Pineapple Street is her first novel.
‘Pineapple Street’ author Jenny Jackson buys $4.2M slice of Brooklyn
By Jennifer Gould
March 25, 2022 2:59pm Updated
Inset of Jenny Jackson over an exterior shot of her new condo's patio area.
New Heights: Writer and editor Jenny Jackson (inset) is moving from Pineapple Street to a Poplar Street condo.
snapjenny/Instagram, The Corcoran Group
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Knopf executive editor Jenny Jackson’s debut novel, “Pineapple Street,” is about how three sisters handle the trappings of inherited wealth.
The book is now being made into a TV series.
Now Jackson (who also edits some of today’s top novelists, and our favorites, like Emily St. John Mandel) and her husband, producer Torrey Liddell are leaving their actual Pineapple Street home for nearby Brooklyn Heights digs.
The couple just bought a $4.2 million condo on Poplar Street, according to property records.
That’s less than the seller, Tora Fisher, of the Fisher Brothers real estate family, and her husband, real estate exec/broker Louis Buckworth, paid when they bought it for $4.31 million in 2017,
00:14
01:14
Interior of the Poplar Street home.
The Poplar Street condo sports 2,455 square feet of indoor space.
The Corcoran Group.
Exterior of the Poplar Street home.
There’s an additional 550 square feet outside on the patio.
The Corcoran Group
The four-bedroom, 3½-bath corner condo is in a landmarked boutique building.
At 2,455 square feet, it features 550 square feet of outdoor space, oversize windows, high ceilings and hardwood floors.
The home opens to an entry gallery that leads to an open living/dining great room space with a gas fireplace.
A bedroom inside the Poplar Street abode.
One of the home’s four bedrooms.
The Corcoran Group
The kitchen and dining area inside the Poplar Street home.
The Poplar Street residence features an open chef’s kitchen.
The Corcoran Group
There’s also an open chef’s kitchen that leads to a landscaped wrap terrace with a grill and water/gas hookup.
What do you think? Be the first to comment.
The main bedroom suite has its own wing and comes with a spa-like ensuite bathroom and a second private terrace.
The listing broker was Hannah Bomze of Casa Blanca Real Estate.
Picturestart Developing TV Series Adaptation Of Jenny Jackson Novel ‘Pineapple Street’
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Jenny Jackson and Picture Start logo
Torrey Liddell/PictureStart
EXCLUSIVE: Picturestart has acquired the rights to Jenny Jackson’s debut novel Pineapple Street to develop as a television series.
Pineapple Street take a deep dive into generation wealth and all its trappings. The Stockton family, an “old money” NYC clan that has enjoyed all the privileges of capitalist success, now faces a schism as their three children set to inherit all that money grapple with what it really means (from the perch of ultra-privileged indulgence).
Chloe Dan and Neil Krishnan are overseeing the project with the search for a scribe underway.
Pam Dorman’s eponymous imprint at Penguin Random House has U.S. publishing rights with additional rights sold in eight countries across the globe.
Jackson is a Vice President and Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf where she has worked for nineteen years. Her authors include Chris Bohjalian (The Flight Attendant), Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven), Erin Morgenstern (The Starless Sea) and J. Courtney Sullivan (Friends and Strangers). Jackson, a graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course, lives in Brooklyn Heights with her family.
She is represented by Anonymous Content’s Brooke Ehrlich and Brettne Bloom at The Book Group.
Picturestart’s slate of film projects includes road-trip comedy Unpregnant, which premiered last month on HBO Max, Grease prequel Summer Lovin’ for Paramount and Naruto and Borderlands with Lionsgate. The company also has near a dozen scripted series set with multiple outlets.
Jackson, Jenny PINEAPPLE STREET Pamela Dorman/Viking (Fiction None) $28.00 3, 7 ISBN: 978-0-59-349069-3
Money makes the world go round, particularly the world of an elite Brooklyn family.
"On good days, Sasha could acknowledge how incredibly lucky she was to live in her house. It was a four-story Brooklyn limestone, a massive, formal palace that could have held ten of the one-bedroom apartments Sasha had lived in before. But on bad days...." As Sasha finally admits in a gloves-off monologue following a gender reveal party gone awry, on bad days, it's "a janky Grey Gardens full of old toothbrushes and moldy baskets." A wealthier cousin of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Knopf editor Jackson's fiction debut is a comedy of manners charting the fates of the Stockton siblings and their spouses, circling around the house where they grew up in Brooklyn Heights, now inhabited by Cord and his wife, Sasha, who is referred to as the Gold Digger by Cord's sisters, Darley and Georgiana. That's unfair, though: Sasha signed a prenup. Meanwhile, Darley and her husband, Malcolm, a Korean American aviation-industry analyst who did not sign a prenup, are living off their own money as Darley fights the tedium of the entitled mommy lifestyle. Georgiana, much younger than her siblings, still single, is considered the do-gooder of the family because she works for a nonprofit, where she becomes involved in a passionate and very ill-advised relationship. From the opening scene, where Sasha's mother-in-law shows up to dinner with an entire replacement menu and a revised "tablescape," Jackson has a deft hand with all the passive-aggressive interactions that are so common in family life, perhaps particularly in this socio-economic stratum. She knows her party themes, her tennis clubs, her silent auctions, and her WASP family dynamics. Rich-people jokes, cultural acuity, and entertaining banter keep this novel moving at a sprightly pace as the characters learn their lessons about money and morals, though some of the virtuous reform seems a little much.
A remarkably enjoyable visit with the annoying one percent, as close to crazy rich WASPs as WASPs can get.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Jackson, Jenny: PINEAPPLE STREET." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A731562141/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=972afc6d. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Pineapple Street
Jenny Jackson. Viking/Dorman, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593-49069-3
Jackson’s clever if tepid debut chronicles the struggles of three women born or married into an old-monied New York City family. Cord Stockton, the family’s middle child, marries Sasha, and the couple takes over the family’s Brooklyn Heights house. Sasha, who comes from a middle-class Rhode Island family, is referred to as “the GD” (gold digger) by Cord’s sisters. Darley Stockton, the oldest, gives up her banking career to be a full-time mom. Georgiana, the youngest, is mainly a directionless party girl with a gig at a nonprofit, where she’s sleeping with her married boss. Tensions come to a head as Darley’s and Georgiana’s fortunes shift and Sasha decides to beat it for Rhode Island. Unfortunately, most of the characters aside from Sasha are underdeveloped (Stockton matriarch Tilda delivers predictably cartoonish lines, like “Sasha, would you like to tell us what it was like growing up poor?”), though Jackson shines in her incisive observations about the ravages of contemporary real estate developments (at the former Hotel St. George, “ghosts of the original remained, the green balconies that once overlooked the swimming pool... now home to a series of elliptical machines where old people and college students climbed to nowhere”). Despite the dusty feeling, this has its moments. Agent: Brettne Bloom, Book Group. (Mar.)
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DETAILS
Reviewed on: 12/15/2022
Genre: Fiction
Other - 978-0-593-49070-9
Other - 978-0-593-65470-5
Paperback - 480 pages - 978-0-593-67671-4
Paperback - 320 pages - 978-0-7352-4441-2
Book Review: Pineapple Street
Book ReviewsNews
07/12/2022
Book Review | Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
This was a surprisingly difficult novel to review because while aspects of it captivated me I was in some ways left unsatisfied. I was initially sold on trying it due to the 'family saga' angle which is absolute catnip to me and I thought Jackson did a fantastic job of creating a family that was both recognisable and unique. The story is told from the POV of three female characters - Georgiana and Darley (siblings from the main Stockton family) and Sasha, who has married their brother Cord. I enjoyed the different viewpoints this facilitated and the ability to learn more about each sibling's life outside of the central family unit. I particularly loved the rendering of Darley and Malcolm's marriage, although it did feel unbelievably perfect! Georgiana probably has the most interesting narrative arc of the three women, and I really liked the discussions around inherited wealth that her storyline invoked. Sasha's family background is also explored a little which provides a nice juxtaposition to the extreme wealth and society centric one she marries into.
The interrogation of the morality and responsibilities surrounding inherited wealth were probably what interested me most about this book. It's always fun reading about the super rich but it's also absolutely been done before so this was a great twist on the subject and genuinely sparked some debate between my husband and myself. I found that in general Jackson showed a great depth of knowledge (or excellently done research) on a number of topics: New York society, the property market, the financial industry and, perhaps most intriguingly, the financial side of the aviation industry.
Ultimately there's a lot to like about this novel and I definitely found that I sped through the final third of the story. However it took me an incredibly long time to get into the book in the first place. I thought that the more interesting aspects of each character didn't begin to evolve until quite late in the novel and they were instead kept superficial for a little too long. The reason that, despite all the things I genuinely loved about Pineapple Street, I didn't love the book as a whole was simply that I was left wanting more. More of each character's story, more of Sasha's family, more interplay between the Stockton siblings and parents. I resented how long it took to get into the book because, once I was in, there seemed to be so much to explore that was only touched upon. There were so many interestingly messy emotions and yearnings that were suddenly neatly tied up at the end that I felt a little cheated out of what could've been a number of emotive and nuanced moments between characters.
In summary I do think this novel is worth a read. As I mentioned earlier there's plenty to like, it's a really fun depiction of a New York society family and how interlinked their personalities and decisions are with their money. There are loads of interesting relationships and little twists that are really enjoyable and some really amusing scenes. I just really felt like it could have been even better.