“Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sunbleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha’s Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. In the days following the end of the Second World War, the world seems to offer itself up, and the two women are on the cusp of their ‘real lives’: Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own young husband, Hughes, about to return from the war.”
The only reason I finished this East Coast family saga was because it is a book club assignment. The book was very disappointing in almost every way. There is some intrigue around a murder, a resident psychopath, and some infidelities, but the author doesn’t use these things to sustain any kind of narrative drive. The writing is banal, the characters are just self-indulgent rich people, and the story line is basically non-existent. The murder is brutal and shocking but all it ever results in is fodder in the community for dinner conversation. The story has a faint resemblance to The Great Gatsby, focusing on the lives of the rich and privileged, but doesn’t truly make any kind of statement or develop any noticeable themes aside from evoking the old-fashioned nostalgic feel of Fitzgerald’s work.
I am confused that some reviews about this book are glowing and I am really looking forward to book club to find out why others may have liked it enough to choose it.
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