Scott Fitzgerald told us that the rich are different. If we believe HEIRESS BEHIND THE HEADLINES they are neurotic, self-obsessed, self-destructive and despise one another. They jump into bed with people they claim to hate.

Larissa Whitney partied herself almost to death and none of her Ivy league family cared that she spent three weeks in a coma, claiming to the public that she'd been in rehab. Understandably she has taken herself away to recuperate both mentally and physically and has decided to put her shallow behavior behind her. Dropping out and dyeing her hair, she is spending winter on a small island off Maine. Her time out is spoiled when Jack Endicott, who claims to own the island but in fact just owns a house on it, recognizes her. He and Larissa had a fling five years previously but he got tired and grew up a lot quicker than she did.

The two people spend a few chapters sneering at each other, while she pretends to be still the party girl, before Jack invites Larissa to dinner in his mansion. For no reason she or I can think of, she goes. While they find each other sexually attractive, a weekend of unprotected sex later they haven't had a single conversation, they have only traded insults.

The action moves to New York with glittering parties and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, socialites and fund- raisers. Larissa's father Bradford tells her to get her suicide attempt right next time. He wants the shares she holds in the family firm. Jack meanwhile is ordered to marry respectably. Nobody expects these young people to be happy, not even themselves. Their challenge is to get over themselves and find out who loves them.

Maybe Caitlin Crews has got it spot on, I don't know. If the rich are this different, who would want to be rich?