Combining glittering wit, an atmosphere dense in social paranoia, and a breathtaking elegance and precision of language, White''s first novel suggests a hilarious apotheosis of the comedy of manners. For, on the privileged island community where Forgetting Elena takes place, manners are everything. Or so it seems to White''s excruciatingly self-conscious young narrator who desperately wants to be accepted in this world where everything from one''s bathroom habits to the composition of "spontaneous" poetry is subject to rigid conventions.
