Park Ave Summer by R. Rosen

Park Ave Summer takes us back to a small space in time--New York in 1965--to tell the story of how Helen Gurley Brown brought Cosmopolitan magazine to life. The narrator is her new secretary, Alice, who has just arrived from Ohio and really wants to be a photographer. I like all the little details that set the scene: the bouffant hairdos, the wearing dresses to a casual party on Saturday night, the prices that sound ridiculously low to today's ears. 

Alice moves to NYC because her (deceased) mother loved it there and always planned to move the family there. Her father has remarried and she has no siblings, so she doesn't really feel like she has a home in Ohio anymore, and she's eager to embrace New York. She figures being a secretary at a magazine might give her a foot in the door to a photography career but doesn't count on how all-consuming working for Helen will become.  It's fascinating to watch how this tiny woman with no editor experience, through force of will, turns staid Cosmopolitan into a sexy, resounding success.