Griffin is a preparatory school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, with the best students - and the wealthiest parent body - the city has to offer. The emotionally charged lives of the teenagers and adults that collide and intersect at Griffin include those of:Kathryn "Lazy" Hoffman, the headmistress at the Griffin School, who is in the midst of an affair she almost can't remember why she started. Lazy sneaks cigarettes and ministers to students, but her cross to bear is the parents - especially those who wonder why their precious children won't be going to Harvard.Michael Avery, smart, driven, and clearly on the fast track to Cambridge, but so profoundly troubled that he becomes a burden to his girlfriend.Julianne Coopersmith, a sweetly compassionate child of divorce who happily wears designer hand-me-downs from her best friend. She adores Michael even in the face of his neediness and meltdowns.Susan Avery, who is detached from her brilliant but tortured son, and finds it's easier to love her Chinese Crested Hairless than her own child.Dee Coopersmith, who sleeps alone on a pull-out couch in her living room and whose life couldn't be in starker contrast to the lives of the rest of the parent body at Griffin, but whose sense of self and fierce protection for her daughter have unexpected consequences. Read Less