For better or worse, Primates of Park Avenue was getting buzz before it hit shelves. The memoir about author Wednesday Martin’s time living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the privileged one-percenter wives whom she encountered caused quite the stir due to its questionable accuracy. Even still, it debuted as a best seller. It should come as no surprise that the collective entity that is Hollywood wants to make this into a feature film, but after a bidding war among the studios, the rights have finally settled.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, MGM has acquired the film rights to Primates of Park Avenue. Multiple bidders were said to be grabbing at this property, which seems perfectly pegged towards the Real Housewives and Sex and the City crowds. With all of this attention focused on the book, it’s apparent more than ever that the controversies surrounding it aren’t all that controversial as they once appeared to be.
Wednesday Martin, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and wife to a wealthy businessman, is billed as a "social researcher" and the book as an "anthropological memoir." Its content attracted a lot of attention, especially for details like the "wife bonus." Martin aligned this with year-end bonuses Wall Street bankers collect. For these wealthy wives, it was given to them for having a good year in terms of keeping house, raising kids and being a good companion.
The New York Post published a feature dismantling its accuracy, citing falsities such as the time span Martin lived in the area (she wrote six years, though in reality it was three) and the date of a miscarriage. This prompted the publisher to include a statement accompanying further editions of the memoir. Cary Goldstein of Simon & Schuster defended the content by saying that adjusting and disguising names, characteristics and chronologies is a common practice within the memoir genre. Elsewhere, a mom living in New York City who wished to remain nameless told PEOPLE magazine that the book is an "effort to dehumanize these people." She further claimed that she never heard of any wife bonuses. Jill Kargman of Bravo TV’s Odd Mom Out reiterated this obliviousness to the term.
Still, the saying goes "any press is good press," and this holds true for Primates of Park Avenue. The book debuted at no. 1 on the NYT’s list of ebook bestsellers, no. 2 on its list of combined print and ebook, and no. 3 on the list of bestselling hardcovers. It’s still on Amazon’s list of top-selling books, and the bidding war over the film rights further proves this is a story that people want to experience.
