Morningside Heights: A Novel (1st edtn, hardcover) Jun03 was supposed to be first in a trilogy. and yes, looks like the following July, another came out in paper, and a third expected this coming July:
Love, Work, Children: A Novel by Cheryl Mendelson (Paperback - Jul 11, 2006) hardcvr Aug05
Anything for Jane: A Novel by Cheryl Mendelson (Hardcover - Jul 31, 2007) expected Jul07 ok so been published 2 yrs apart

pubweekly re Morningside Hts: The busy, intersecting lives of a group of Manhattanites living in the staid but rapidly changing Upper West Side neighborhood of Morningside Heights near Columbia University are the focus of this talky, occasionally stilted debut novel by Mendelson (Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House). Opera singer Charles Braithwaite; his wife, Anne, a pianist; and their three (soon to be four) children are the novel's ostensible protagonists. The book's real hero, however, is their beloved neighborhood, which they fear they will soon have to leave, unable to afford their cramped apartment. They are surrounded by a large cast of the sort of people commonly found on Manhattan's Upper West Side-independent scholars, professors, eccentric neighbors, with rich stockbrokers huh invading the haunts of the original residents. Mendelson's tone can be stuffy-as befits her subjects-they are stuffy artists? highbrowers? but the accumulation of day-to-day detail, social commentary and emotional insight eventually yields a consistent picture of a rarefied milieu.
and re Work, Children, Love: Mendelson returns to the well-to-do residents of Manhattan's Upper West Side ...different characters this time... a deliberately old-fashioned novel of manners, morals, character and happy endings, reality be damned. A certain kind of reader will be eager for Mendelson's third.what kind of reader? I don't think it's me, I was surprised to enjoy MorningsideHts bcs I am not much for manners novels wh I guess this is right? it's not about inner life ~ but I liked it bcs it did not repudiate depth, what inner life was suggested was insightful?
Booklist: The overambitious gentrification so they are the non-gentry? plans of their co-op's new board of directors and the impending birth of their fourth child have pushed the couple's precarious finances past the breaking point. Charles, an opera singer, and Anne, who has turned domesticity into a deeply creative act, must now seriously consider a dreaded move to the suburbs. ...Mendelson's radiant optimism ... creates a world in which people naturally find and follow the arc of their true talents, lovers' defenses miraculously melt away, and decency and compassion are richly rewarded.
and re the sequel: The author again homes in on the Manhattan neighborhood surrounding Columbia University, populated by an arts-loving community with a high tolerance for the unconventional. In a deeply satisfying story, told in fluid, elegant prose, Mendelson artfully champions the triumph of whimsy over avarice.
customer rvs:
-The review just above mine compares Mendelson's writing to George Eliot and Jane Austin. I'd like to add that, perhaps, some of the writing of the late, great Laurie Colwin has influenced Mendelson's view of polite New York society.
- Mendelson's application of a type of storyline (complete with a mystery, a buried treasure, and everyone getting exactly what they deserve in the end) derived from classic children's literature to adult literary fiction is absolutely inspired.