1985, Simon and Schuster

Set in the circles of the high-fashion magazine "Best", "October Blood" dissects the domain of the glamorous, the famous, the talented, the ambitious, the clairvoyant and the mere poseurs with a wit as razor-sharp and stylish as the people and places it describes. "October Blood" is also a moving study of the relationships between four generations of mothers and daughters, each more extravagant than the last. "October Blood" portrays with satiric humor, psychological depth and high literary style a world Francine Gray knows intimately. Her most ambitious work to date, October Blood is a hilarious, incisive and at times heart-breaking view from the top.

"It's great fun to see Francine du Plessix Gray wear the mask of comedy. Her new voices ring with exuberance as her heroines bring us surprises at first from the Paris collections and then from a larger world. October Blood - a drama in high style."
Maxine Hong Kingston

"One is first struck by her marvellously skillful parody of high fashion lingo - 'gossamer light,' as those formidable arbiters might themselves have put it. Then she gradually, ever so subtly, turns these monstrous women into understandable, even likable, human beings. An extraordinary accomplishment."
Jessica Mitford

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