Circle of Gilt

Group: Six People In Search Of A Life (Riverhead; 339 pages; $25.95), Paul Solotaroff's tribute to his former group therapist, follows six New Yorkers with New Yorkers' problems: too much or not enough money, sex, drugs or ambition. Throw in childhoods with cruel or irresponsible parents, and you've got subjects willing to spend $100 a pop to discover their "true story."

Collecting the door fee and directing the cast is Dr. Charles Lathon, an effective but flawed psychiatrist whom Solotaroff admires with the awe of a proselyte-grad student, having once been counseled through a bout of panic disorder in a Lathon group. Solotaroff, a journalist, profiles a group that Lathon boasts is the "smartest bunch of people I've ever assembled": Sara, a beautiful former model turned fashion editor crippled in her search for a husband by daddy issues; Rex, a Wall Street jock recovering from an addiction to both coke and a blond-bombshell stripper; Dylan, a rock-'n'-roll sideman and jingle writer in the throes of alcoholism; Jack, a 59-year-old Broadway producer and former big spender suspended from producing for seven years, a plea bargain for embezzling from his shows; Peter, a wimpy accountant; and Lina, a mental-health administrator, poverty-stricken by a two-year divorce fight with her millionaire husband. All the names, including the doctor's, are pseudonyms.

Solotaroff promises an examination of the nuances of group therapy through these emotionally addled upper-crusters. His own two-year group experience convinced him of the doctor's effectiveness ("I got lucky"), so he doesn't dissect Lathon's new, 20-session process and the doctor's own subsequent need of rehabilitative help. Instead he focuses on the group members. Problem is, they have stories we've already seen on Oprah, the ultimate group forum. And it's hard to feel sorry for these people, with their luxury homes and contact-filled resumes. The successes and failures portrayed here are neither heartwarming nor heartbreaking. This group should have just talked among themselves.