Olivia Goldsmith RIP

Olivia Goldsmith, whose 1992 debut The First Wives Club transformed the then-forty-something managment consultant into a bestselling contemporary novelist, died on Thursday, after a heart attack while undergoing anesthesia for cosmetic surgery put her into a coma. She was 54. The novel Dumping Billy is slated for publication later this spring, and her agent has told the press that one other book had been completed shortly before her death.

The Sacramento Bee interviewed Goldsmith in 1997; the website Vague Politix has a satirical essay she wrote, inspired by the plight of women whose bad relationship choices got them into prison.