The plot of “The Romantics,” a new novel by Galt Niederhoffer, unfolds during the weekend wedding of Lila Hayes, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy Yale graduate, and her former classmate Tom McDevon, a handsome, charming, social-climbing cipher. The book’s heroine—the clever, ill-at-ease, Brooklyn-dwelling Laura Rosen—was Lila’s college roommate and is now her maid of honor; Laura dated Tom first, and, unbeknownst to the gilded Waspy bride, has for years sustained an intimacy with the groom-to-be. In the book’s first chapter, Laura arrives at the nuptial site (an island off the coast of Maine) burdened by an unflattering pewter-colored gown and a heart filled with loathing for her best friend. Inevitably, romantic chaos ensues.

A party to celebrate the book’s publication was held the other day at the home of Niederhoffer’s friend Kathryn Tucker, a blond, beautiful, witty, and wealthy movie producer, who hosted guests on the roof of her Chelsea town house. The dress code was “slutty bridesmaid or slurring groomsman,” but Tucker had ignored her own injunction, and was dressed in a flattering strapless dress the color of sea foam and red patent-leather Louboutin pumps with four-inch heels. “Look at me—it’s conservative, conservative, conservative, and then the red pumps,” Tucker said, as she elegantly navigated the treacherous decking underfoot, wineglass in hand.

Tucker has never been a bridesmaid, she said, “but I hope to be one day. It seems the better role.” She is separated from her husband, John Sloss, a sales agent for independent films. “The institution of marriage is a curious thing,” she said, with a sad smile and a tilt of the head. “It’s a noble ideal.” Theirs has been an amicable parting—“We’re best buds,” she insisted—and Sloss now lives in the lower half of the town house, which the couple bought in 2004 for a little more than five million dollars, while Tucker and their two small children live upstairs. “It’s like the perfect bohemian existence, except not,” she said.

Tucker recalled that she had disliked Sloss intensely when she first met him, during a dinner at Chasen’s, in Los Angeles, twelve years ago. “As I was leaving, I had a premonition that I was going to marry that guy,” she said. “I kept trying to shake him. He told a friend of mine that he had fallen ‘deeply and irrevocably in love’ with me. I am a sucker for romantic gestures—I am Jane Austen’s biggest fan.” They were married at their farmhouse in Columbia County. “I had my dream wedding,” she said. “My flowers were thistles—prickly things. The gift we gave people to take home was a jar of blueberry jam, and on the label it said, ‘How do I get out of this jam?’ Which was not a very auspicious start. I wore Vivienne Westwood. Richard Linklater’s daughter came and read a sonnet. My dog Rosy was in the wedding. She wore a thistle collar. It was very me.” Was it also very him, she was asked. Tucker paused. “I have no idea,” she said. “Herein lies the problem.”

Niederhoffer, who wore a flattering violet-colored gown and teetering black patent pumps, was circulating among her guests with an air of modest gratitude. “The Romantics” is her second novel; her first, “A Taxonomy of Barnacles,” has been described by reviewers as a fictionalized chronicle of her experience growing up as the clever, ill-at-ease daughter of the eccentric investor Victor Niederhoffer, who named her for Francis Galton, the Victorian anthropologist and the coiner of the term eugenics. Niederhoffer is thirty-two and is a producer of independent movies as well as a novelist. She lives in a brownstone in Cobble Hill with her partner, Jim Strouse, and their children, Magnolia, three, and Grover, one. Magnolia is named for the West Village bakery where the couple met. “I was a customer, and he was a trusty icer, recently off the turnip truck,” Niederhoffer recalled. “I was a brazen New York JAP, and he was a totally oblivious rube from the Midwest. I picked him up. It was a horribly tawdry beginning. He told me his name was Jim and his brother was Tim, and I thought, He’s really from a different planet.”

The couple have been engaged since before Niederhoffer was pregnant with Magnolia but have no immediate plans to marry. “I come from the kind of family where marriage has not exactly spelled success,” she said. Victor Niederhoffer and his first wife, Gail, divorced after the birth of Galt and her sister Katie; he went on to have four more daughters with his second wife, Susan. Three years ago, he conceived another child with his longtime paramour, Laurel Kenner. “In a way, my book party is my wedding,” Niederhoffer said. “This is a better thing to aspire to, isn’t it? To be celebrated for your intelligence and your talent, rather than for your size-two beauty.”

With the sun setting over the Hudson, Niederhoffer, who by now had removed her shoes, like a bride after three hours on the dance floor, gave a toast, offering particular thanks to Kathryn Tucker: “The gorgeous blonde. So glamorous. So lovely.” Tucker was still standing effortlessly in her red pumps, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t had anything to eat. “It’s just like a wedding,” she said, as a waitress came by with an empty tray. “You get drunk and you forget to eat, and you don’t have that great a night.” The waitress returned with a tray of spring rolls, but Tucker declined, with another tilt of the head and a sorry smile, as if discouraging a suitor with a polite, insincere show of regret.

加特·尼德霍夫的新作《浪漫》的故事情节是在莱拉·海耶斯周末的婚礼上展开的。海耶斯是个金发美女，一名聪明而又富贵的耶鲁大学研究生。她以前的同班同学汤姆·麦克德文是一个帅气迷人而又爱攀龙附凤的人。该小说的女主角——居住在布鲁克林的智慧而不安分的罗拉·罗斯——是莱拉的大学室友，也是她如今的伴娘。罗拉在认识有钱人海耶斯之前就和汤姆交往过，又和现在的准新郎也维持过几年的亲密关系。小说的第一章，罗拉穿着笨重的、令人难受的蓝灰色礼服来到婚礼现场（离缅因州不远的一个岛上），她的内心充满了对好友的憎恨。很显然，浪漫气息接踵而来。

几天前，尼德霍夫在好朋友凯瑟琳·塔克家里举办了一个庆祝小说出版的派对。凯瑟琳也是个金发美女，聪明有财富，电影制片人。她在切尔西城内的住宅顶楼招待宾客。当晚的着装要求是要么带猥琐性质的伴娘装，要么带诋毁性质的伴郎装。但是塔克自己却不顾这个要求，当晚她身穿着一条漂亮的海蓝色吊带连衣裙，脚穿一双著名的卢博婷四英寸跟的红色漆皮单鞋。她手握着葡萄酒杯，优雅的指着脚下的装饰，说道，“看看我，这儿保守，这儿保守，保守，以及这双红色单鞋”。

塔克从来没有做过伴娘，她说，“我希望有一天能做伴娘，看上去这是个更好的角色”。她和身为独立影片销售代理人的丈夫约翰·斯洛斯已经分居。她歪着头忧伤的笑着说，“婚姻真是奇妙”。他们的婚姻已经有了一个友好的结束。“我们是最好的朋友”她强调道。现在斯洛斯住下面一半的楼层，而塔克和她两个小孩则住上半部分楼层。这栋房子是他们两夫妻在零四年花了不到五百万美元买下的。她又说道，“不排除的话，我们很像波西米亚居住方式”。

塔克回忆十二年前，她在洛杉矶蔡斯家的宴会上第一次见斯洛斯时，就对他喜欢得不得了。“当我离开时，我就预感我会嫁给这个男人”，她说道，“我不停的跟他握手，他跟我一个朋友说他已经无可救药地深深地爱上了我。我是个超级喜欢浪漫的人——我很迷简·奥斯丁的作品”。后来，他们在哥伦比亚郡的农场别墅结婚。她说，“我得到了我梦想般的婚礼，花是多刺的苍紫花，我们给宾朋带回家的礼物是一罐蓝莓酱，商标上写着‘我怎么离开这罐果酱呢？’这可不是一个很吉利的婚宴开端啊！我穿着维维恩·韦斯特伍德设计的礼服。理查德·林克莱特的女儿也带着她的十四行诗来参加我们的婚礼。我的狗儿罗斯也在婚礼上，她带着蓟项圈，她就像我一样”。当被问到狗儿是否也像他时，塔克停顿了下，说，“我不知道，这也隐埋了我们俩的问题”。

尼德霍夫穿着一件漂亮的紫罗兰色的礼服和一双宽大的黑色专利单鞋，带谦逊的感激之情走进宾客之中。《浪漫》是她的第二部小说，她的第一部小说《刑具分类》已经被评论家评为她自己的成长小说。她自小就聪明而不安分，父亲维克托·尼德霍夫是个古怪的投资者，他给女儿取名为弗朗西斯·加特——维多利亚人类学家和优生法的创造者。尼德霍夫现年三十二岁，独立电影制片人，也是一名小说家。她和丈夫吉姆·斯特劳斯以及两个小孩（三岁的玛格诺丽亚和一岁的格洛佛）住在科博尔山镇的赤竭色砂石高级住宅里。玛格诺丽亚是以西村的一个面包房店名而命名的，这是他俩夫妇相遇的地方。“当时我是一名顾客，他是一名可靠的装冰工人，刚离开装着芜青的卡车”，尼德霍夫回忆，“我可是一名响当当的纽约大作家，而他很明显是一个来自中西部的乡巴佬。不过我让他搭车了，这是个非常庸俗的开端。他告诉我他叫吉姆，他哥哥叫蒂姆。我想他真是来自另外一个星球的人”。

他们在尼德霍夫怀上玛格诺丽亚前就已经订婚了，但他们还没有立即结婚的打算。她说，“我出身一个婚姻失败的家庭”。当时，父亲维克托·尼德霍夫和他的第一任妻子盖尔在加特和她姐姐出生后离婚了，后来与第二任妻子苏珊生了四个小孩。三年以后，他和他多年的情妇罗瑞尔·肯娜尔又怀了另一个孩子。“从某种程度上说，我小说里的派对就是我的婚礼”，尼德霍夫说道，“这是一件更令人渴望的好事，不是吗？不是为了你不错的美貌，而是为了你的智慧和才能而庆祝。

当太阳升上哈得逊河岸时，已经脱掉了鞋的尼德霍夫像是一个在舞池当中跳了三个小时舞的新娘，她向大家祝酒，特别提出了对凯瑟琳·塔克的感激，“感谢这位漂亮的金发碧眼女人，你太迷人了，太可爱了”。塔克仍然穿着那双轻松的红色单鞋，尽管她什么东西都没有吃。“这就像是一场婚礼”，一个女侍应走过来拿走空托盘时，尼德霍夫说，“你喝酒了，但是你忘记吃东西了，所以你并没度过一个美好的晚上”。这时侍应端过来一盘春卷，但是塔克拒绝了。她又是歪着头，抱歉的一笑，好像是礼貌而又不太真诚地回绝一个追求者。