This author’s first bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, was variously described as self-indulgent or marvellous. In a nod to some critics who found that contentious memoir portrayed an indulged, privileged white woman, Gilbert has this novel’s narrator to be just that, and what’s more, eventually realises it.

A college drop-out from a wealthy family, Vivian is shunted off to New York in the 1940s to stay with an aunt, similarly shunned by the family, who owns a theatre in Hell’s Kitchen where she puts on tawdry little musicals, complete with dancers, showgirls and just three backdrops. Vivian, a talented seamstress, takes over theatre costume duties and, in her search of secondhand dress stores for fabrics, makes a lifelong friendship.

The pre-war New York nightlife, heady, boozy, decadent and indulgent, becomes the norm for Vivian and one of her showgirl pals. Gilbert brings those showgirls to life, along with the other theatre residents. Her life changes when WWII starts and a top British theatre actress and her husband, marooned in New York because their home was bombed in London, become part of the entourage. Vivian considers the petite, sophisticated, chic actress the embodiment of wondrous womanhood and delights in making costumes for her in a new hit musical.

That’s one of the strengths of this book, the complicated relationships that rise and fall with the fortunes of the main players. There’s betrayal, disgrace, an almost-marriage for Vivian, then war work entertaining dock workers, births, deaths and deep love, and always … New York.

It’s a paean of love for that city, all told by Vivian, a woman grown old in its embrace, who has moved beyond her self-indulgence.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville