Santa Barbara  author Dori Carter’s recently released novel about life in an afluent California community. “The little, leafy town of Rancho Esperanza has been a perfect place to live for over a century–a bastion of good, solid, Anglo-Saxon, Republican money. These founding fathers built their gracious estates and country club and fondly called their town, “Ohio by the Sea.” There was only one traffic light and time seemed to stop at the freeway off ramp.”

Then came the Clinton years and the invasion of the New American Ruling Class: New York hedge fund managers, Hollywood producers, and Silicon Valley billionaires. Almost overnight, real estate prices quadruple, horse pastures vanish, tuna tartare and arugula appear on every menu, and a Democratic congresswoman is elected by a landslide. The Old Guard aristocrats of yesterday are now irrelevant and the only power they have is keeping the Kornblatts out of their country club.

Twelve characters with distinctly different voices tell their tales of lust and longing spanning the years from World War II to the present–each story a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. The pieces all fit together until the secrets and lies, guarded for generations, are revealed, changing everything we thought was true about Rancho Esperanza and the people who live there. Written as a novel in stories, Dori Carter’s social satire gets into the hearts and souls of her characters, and presents a fresh look at our attitudes toward money and the ever-shifting nature of status in America.

“Dori Carter’s We Are Rich is as compact, colorful and mysteriously artful
as a Mondrian. In other words, it’s a small miracle.”
–Bruce Wagner, author most recently of Memorial and The Chrysanthemum Palace

“[Dori Carter’s] insider’s view…reminds me of the pleasures of first reading John O’Hara and Fitzgerald on the same culture clash in another time not unlike our own.”
–Frank Pierson, screenwriter for Dog Day Afternoon and Cool Hand Luke,
and Artistic Director of American Film Institute

“…Dori Carter writes with the poise of a satirist who knows her subject all too well. Frighteningly, I found myself thinking I knew these people, so many of whom are making real headlines in our current boom gone bust. But that’s Carter’s magic–writing with the authenticity of an insider but with the fresh, keen eye of a outsider…”
–Roger Horchow, author The Art of Friendship and Elephants in Your Mailbox

Available locally at Chaucer’s Books