User:Michaelhaverland/Philip Galanes

Philip Galanes

Biography
Philip Galanes was born and raised in New England, and earned degrees from Yale College and Yale Law School. He worked as an entertainment lawyer at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, representing clients in film, theater, television and fine art. More recently, he served as the General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer of Golden Books Family Entertainment, a children’s media company. He now represents clients in private practice and sits on the boards of directors of several companies.

In June of 2008, Philip debuted as a weekly columnist for the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times. His "Social Q's" column, which answers reader questions about the sticky situations that they face in every corner of modern life, quickly became one of the most consistently popular and most-read features of the newspaper.

Philip's first novel, Father's Day, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2004. Hailed by The Los Angeles Times as "heartbreaking and brilliantly finny," the novel was selected by Barnes & Noble for its "Discover Great New Writers" series. His second novel, Emma's Table, was published by HarperCollins in 2008. USA Today praised it for "characters that cook with both spice and comedy...and as a bittersweet comedy of modern urban existence." Always an avid furniture collector, Philip also consults on interior design projects for select clients. Recent projects include a House in East Hampton, interior design, furnishings and art for an Edward Durrell Stone townhouse , and a guest house/garden pavilion in Greenwich Village.

Philip lives in East Hampton and New York City

The New York Times - Social Q’s
Weekly column in the Sunday Styles Sections. Social Q's offers lighthearted advice about awkward social situations.

Social Q’s

Television
The Today Show - NBC

Philip now appears monthly on the Today Show with Hoda and Kathie Lee discussing sticky situations. Appearances:

February 11, 2010, Tips For Minding Manners

December 22, 2009, Holiday Situations

Emma’s Table
Harper Collins, 2008

Synopsis From the moment Emma Sutton walks into the esteemed Fitzcoopers auction house, the one-time media darling knows exactly what she wants: an exquisite antique dining table. What she doesn’t realize is what she’s finally getting: the chance to set things right.

Fresh from a year-long stretch in prison and the media blood-letting that accompanied her fall, Emma needs a clean start. She finds her life just as she left it, filled with glittering business successes and bruising personal defeats – the rolling television cameras and chauffeured limousines, the awkward Sunday dinners at home. Deep down, she knows she needs to find a better way, but she can’t imagine what it might be.

Enter Benjamin, a terminally charming social worker, who moonlights for Emma on the weekends, and Gracie, an overweight third-grader who’s one of his wards. The unlikely trio is surrounded by an eclectic supporting cast – a tiny Japanese diplomat, a bossy yoga teacher, Emma’s prodigal ex-husband and daughter – who are all drawn together by the dynamic woman at the novel’s center Through the subtle power of his telling prose, Philip Galanes transforms this Park Avenue morality tale into a thoroughly winning, surprisingly moving tour de force.

Philp has appeared on several television and radio shows to discuss Emma’s Table, including Joan Hamburg radio show, Steven Gaines radio show, and Plum TV.

Father’s Day
Knopf, 2004

Synopsis Matthew Vaber’s life has just taken a turn for the worse. His father has killed himself – a tragedy for which he feels bitterly responsible, when he lets himself feel much of anything about it at all – and his thrilling but damaged mother has taken center stage yet again. Into this cocktail of familial mayhem, Matthew tosses a bubbling new ingredient: the Pump Line, New York’s tawdriest phone sex service, where men appear and disappear at the push of a button.

On the Pump Line, Matthew accomplishes precisely what he can’t manage in life, enacting dramas of desire and connection without the burden of any real connection at all and, in the neatest of psychological tricks, manages to feel both unworthy and uninterested in these telephonic men at the very same time. Father’s Day tracks Matthew’s progress over an extraordinary year of pratfalls and sex and mourning and, quite unexpectedly, something that looks disconcertingly like true love.

Philip Galanes has written a superb comic novel that is, at heart, the story of a son coming to terms with the loss of his father, and a sly and at times exquisitely tender exploration of grief, loneliness, and the depths of childhood shame. In Matthew – wildly antic yet urbane and cannily conspiratorial – Galanes has created one of the freshest and funniest characters to emerge in years, a young man coming to grips with his own vulnerability and pureness of heart through a deliciously funny descent into a cockeyed fantasy of self-annihilation.

Father’s Day introduces us to a brilliant new writer of immense talent and charm.

Legal
Philip graduated from Yale Law School in 1991, where he served as senior editor of both the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. After graduation, he joined Devevoise & Plimpton in New York City, where he worked in mergers and acquisitions with private equity firms such as Kelso and Clayton & Dubilier.

In 1994, Philip joined the Entertainment Group at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, where he represented clients in the theater, film, and the fine arts, including Lincoln Center Theater, the Public Theater, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Alfred Uhry, Peter Martins, and Richard Serra. In 1996, Philip became the General Counsel of Golden Books Family Entertainment, the storied publisher of children’s books with the golden spines, which was then expanding into the film and television businesses. He supervised the acquisition of Broadway Video, Lorne Michaels’ media company. In 1998, he was named Chief Administrative Officer, presiding over the Company’s reorganization and subsequent sale to Random House in 2001.

Since the sale of Golden Books, Philip has represented corporate and individual clients in private practice and has served on the Boards of Directors of various private companies and charitable organizations.

Design
Select Projects


 * Apartment, Upper East Side, New York, NY (2007)


 * Townhouse, Upper East Side, New York, NY (2006)


 * House, East Hampton, NY (2004)


 * Garden Pavilion, New York, NY (2004)


 * Duplex Apartment, New York NY (2000)