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Rating: 
Summary: Nanny and the Neurotics
Review: Actually is there anything good to be said about a New York book editor and TV reviewer wife who live fashionably in the suburbs? Author Cheever has his doubts.
Meet the Cross family. Husband and father Stuart is a passive soul who likes fine things and has long held his job editing books for a publishing firm. Wife Andie reviews movies, and is positioned somewhat on the edge of a nicely blooming paranoia. They hire a good nanny, well actually a superlative nanny, whom Andie immediately worries about. Why? Well she seems too good, and she is black, and there is the matter of her also black boy friend who may have been in prison, and is he cruising by the place, sort of casing it for some nefarious crime?
Andie becomes a hysteric who insists either she or Stuart should be at home at all times when Nanny Louise is taking care of the children. Stuart is a wimp. In an amusing adventure in a Best Buy type store he proves incompetent in making a choice of a DVD player, and is overwhelmed with worry when either of his daughters is not in his immediate line of vision. Stuart's job is also suddenly jeopardized, and he now has the opportunity to fulfill his lifetime wish to write the All American Novel. His efforts in this regard are humorous if not overly productive.
There is a not too happy ending to this story that follows a tragic serious of errors, and we are left wondering if there is any hope for our seemingly effete WASP community as depicted by Cheever. The author portrays two less then well grounded individuals who have difficulty coping with a fairly easy life. Mr. Cheever also uses themes of fate and contingency throughout the book. If small events had not happened when they did, would outcomes be vastly different then they actually were? Does the movement of Science Fiction writer Ray Bradbury's jungle butterfly really affect the outcome of world events?
This was an interesting and different sort of novel, but after finishing it I wondered if it was worth it all. Were these real people? Do they matter? Is this story really that plausible? You read and decide.
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: I did enjoy this Westchester-based book. It was funny, irreverant, and a fast, summer read. While the husband and wife were fairly believable, some of their actions (like buying a toy gun for their daughter) were a bit of a stretch. It was fast paced and interesting and the details were spot on. What amazed me was the number of typos even by page 20. Where were the editors?
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: I did enjoy this Westchester-based book. It was funny, irreverant, and a fast, summer read. While the husband and wife were fairly believable, some of their actions (like buying a toy gun for their daughter) were a bit of a stretch. It was fast paced and interesting and the details were spot on. What amazed me was the number of typos even by page 20. Where were the editors?
Rating: 
Summary: avoid
Review: I found this book frustrating at many turns. I still can't figure out what the author was trying to say--women should stay at home with their children, it's hard to write a great first novel, nannies are smarter than the people they work for. This book also had some very surprising typos, and an author with little "ear" for the way people talk---especially children. The one scene that totally was a thumbs down was when the wife, Andie, gives the nanny a very hard time. The nanny doesn't quit--which would be the case in real life--but, seems to glide through the incident. I was left wondering if the author had his own children, or was an uncle of some sort, watching people, nannies and children at a distance.
Rating: 
Summary: Social Satire With A Glorious Edge
Review: In an age where writers are too quickly elevated to a status of excellence undeserved, Ben Cheever quietly continues to produce the finest work of intelligent satire in America. THE GOOD NANNY delves deliciously into the heart of parenting, publishing and paranoia with delectable twists and turns along the way. Cheever revels in the subtle insights which bring characters to life, builds stories to a perfect pitch and offers observations on modern life that are simply unparalleled today. While others catch the headlines - with books like Little Children being anointed as chic suburban drama - there is simply no one producing the sort of satire as Ben Cheever does again in The Good Nanny. His humor is a razor finely honed, the ending of The Good Nanny honest and incomparable, not pandering. What a unique concept - Cheever actually respects the intelligence of his audience! The Good Nanny is a great work not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Social Satire With A Glorious Edge
Review: In an age where writers are too quickly elevated to a status of excellence undeserved, Ben Cheever quietly continues to produce the finest work of intelligent satire in America. THE GOOD NANNY delves deliciously into the heart of parenting, publishing and paranoia with delectable twists and turns along the way. Cheever revels in the subtle insights which bring characters to life, builds stories to a perfect pitch and offers observations on modern life that are simply unparalleled today. While others catch the headlines - with books like Little Children being anointed as chic suburban drama - there is simply no one producing the sort of satire as Ben Cheever does again in The Good Nanny. His humor is a razor finely honed, the ending of The Good Nanny honest and incomparable, not pandering. What a unique concept - Cheever actually respects the intelligence of his audience! The Good Nanny is a great work not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A Winning Ben Cheever Country
Review: It's a masterpiece! I could not put it down. Grand, biting humor, and effortless satire and the realism. My heart went out to his deftly crafted main chararcters, inhabiting the Ben Cheever Country, a different creation from the Cheever Country that so many of us admire. Mr. Cheever takes us, with ease, to a depot somewhere along the Metro-North railroad and entertains and, yes, at times shocks us with tales of his unique invention. His settings seem so near and yet far away in time and space, and his stories so beguiling and yet, realistic. The Good Nanny is a fierce contender for this year's award race and an instant classic. Ben Cheever is one of America's finest fiction writers.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been better...
Review: Occasionally amusing descriptions of confused upper middle class suburbanites and their conflicted attitudes toward careers and parenting can't salvage this novel. The dialogue (especially that of the children) was awfully stilted, the plot was extremely slight, and the ending was completely predictable. Worst of all, the dust jacket summary gave away (before I even started to read) a very pivotal plot element that wasn't revealed until page 176 of a 270 page book.
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