By Charlene Giannetti and Debra Toppeta

No one has much sympathy these days for the women married to the new Masters of the Universe, those running hedge funds. That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t LOVE to imagine what their lives are like, for better or worse. Jill Kargman’s new novel, The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund is our guilty pleasure, a peek inside the rarefied world of the very wealthy.

“Write what you know about,” is good advice for writers, and Kargman certainly does that. Born and raised on the Upper East Side, Kargman credits her parents (mother, Coco, is French and her father, Arie Kopelman, was president of Chanel) for keeping her grounded despite her privileged upbringing. After boarding school, Kargman went to Yale where she graduated in three years. While she certainly qualifies as a member of the youthful elite, she prefers to remain on the outside, using what she knows to skewer the rich in her hilarious novels.

In person, Kargman is just as down to earth as we have been led to believe. We meet at Sette Mezzo, on the Upper East Side where the ladies who lunch like to gather. The restaurant figures prominently in her new book, so we thought it would be fun to see if life could imitate fiction. Kargman is not a hedge fund wife (her husband, Harry, has a software company), and neither are we! So we settle in to a delicious meal eager to hear how she has become a modern day Jane Austen.

“At the apex of Wall Street craziness, there was a lot of conspicuous consumption,” she said. That excess was particularly evident during the lavish children’s birthday parties, something that Kargman wrote about in a previous book, Momzillas. “It was crazy over the top for a two year-old,” she said, noting that she attended some parties with five entertainers and more flowers than at her wedding. “It was so in your face, it caught my eye,” she said. “I meant it as a satire of that era. Three years later, it’s so much different.”

In order to better understand the life of a hedge fund wife, Kargman arranged a private lunch for a dozen women. “I wanted to talk in a safe place,” she explained. “I wanted to know what it was like to be married to a Master of the Universe. I found there was lots of loneliness and questions about his whereabouts.” The meeting turned into a “confession booth for these women whose husbands had cheated.” The men came across as “mentally elastic,” able to get “any woman and anything they wanted.”

Kargman admits that Kiki, one of the outspoken ex-hedge wives in the novel, “is part me, part my best friends. You always have to have a character you can funnel all your thoughts through.” The heroine, Holly Talbott, however, has to be “more sympathetic.” Or else the reader won’t root for her. We end up rooting for both women as they ditch cheating husbands and work to make new lives for themselves.

Besides Momzillas and The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, Kargman has two New York Times bestsellers, The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing, both written with Carrie Doyle-Karasyov. The duo has also written three young adult novels, Jet Set, Summer Intern, and Bittersweet Sixteen.

Arm Candy, Kargman’s recently finished novel to be published in 2010, is about a thirty-nine year-old model, a “cougar,” having an affair with a twenty-eight year-old scion of a well-connected political family. “His family is not pleased,” she said. “Being a model is frowned upon by his family.” In the end, however, she makes him a little younger and he makes her grow up.

With three small children to care for (Kargman rushed to Sette Mezzo for our lunch after picking up her daughter, Sadie, 6, at school, and bringing her home) Kargman manages to fit in her writing each day from 12:30 to 3:30. Her other children are Ivy, three, and Fletch, 20 months.

Kargman remains close to her parents who are doting grandparents. Her brother, Will, works in advertising and lives in California. While her writing is important, her children are her priority. Being away from them for her recent book tour was difficult. She looks at the bright side, however. When touring for Momzillas, she was pregnant and hormonal. “On this tour I wasn’t pregnant and could have a glass of Champagne,” she said.

Kargman credits her professors at Yale for giving her the confidence to be a writer. Rather than majoring in English, Kargman took Romance languages and majored in art history. Because there were only twenty-eight students majoring in art history, her professors had plenty of time for her. “They were great writers,” she said. When she was invited back to her residential college at Yale to talk about her books, she reminded them what types of books she wrote. “I was told that the master of my college was well aware of my books,” she said with a laugh. “I was told, `Someone has to write those books and we’re thrilled it’s a Yalie.’”

For more information on Kargman and her books, go to her website, www.jillkargman.com

Woman Around Town’s Six Questions

Favorite Place to Eat: Rao’s
Favorite Place to Shop: Brooklyn
Favorite New York Sight: The Brooklyn Bridge
Favorite New York Moment: Hearing, “It’s a girl,” at New York Hospital.
What You Love About New York: The street life.
What You Hate About New York: Rats and roaches.