THE JOY OF FAMILY
About once a year, I indulge in a paragraph or two about our granddaughters. They come to Maine with their parents for a week each August, and it’s a fun time. Filled with favorite activities from swimming in the cove to competing at miniature golf to several trips to the local bookstore. Add in going to railway village for a train ride and vintage cars, plus the botanical gardens where pausing to create a fairy house is a must.
Lobsters, oysters, and clams make an appearance on our plates.
We dine at casual Cozy’s Dockside (ending with ice cream!) and recall previous good times at the Newagen Pub. The Chief Penguin and I and Tim have been coming to this part of Maine for 35 years! Today, our 9 and 13-year-old granddaughters continue to create memories of their own.
READING: BEACH BOOKS
Sometimes a beach read is just what I need to decompress and relax. They may not be fine literature, but the plots are thick with secrets, conflict, and romance. All played out against the waterfronts of Maine or Connecticut or Cape Cod or Nantucket. Recently, I read several beach books, each engaging enough to give me a few pleasurable hours, and each by an author whose previous work I didn’t know. Two of these titles were published in 2022; the pandemic, whether overtly or in the background, colors their worlds.
Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein
In Maine Characters, Vivian and Lucy are half-sisters who have never met. Lucy, a schoolteacher, has spent every July at the lake house with her father. Vivian, a sommelier from Manhattan, comes to Maine to spread her father’s ashes in July, when usually she has visited him in August. When the two sisters meet each other, sparks fly. Neither has much sympathy for or welcome from the other. How they navigate several weeks together is a messy, difficult business.
At times, I didn’t care for either Vivian or Lucy very much; one entitled, the other unsympathetic. Together they learn about each other’s earlier life, unravel the secrets of their parent’s pasts, and tentatively navigate a fragile new beginning.
Vacationland by Meg Mitchell Moore
In Vacationland, Louisa brings her three children, ages 7, 10, and 12, to her parents’ Maine house on Penobscot Bay for the summer. A professor, she is determined to finish writing her scholarly book. Her husband Steven stays back in Brooklyn to work on his podcast business. The children are self-sufficient up to a point but still need attention.
A young woman on a mission, Kristie shows up from Pennsylvania looking for a job and attracts the attention of Danny, the handyman who works at Louisa’s family home. How these various lives intersect, who has secrets, how the stresses in a marriage play out, and what individuals owe each other and themselves make for an engrossing novel. Moore is masterful at portraying the details of daily life with kids along with the tensions within a marriage. Recommended!
The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
The Summer Place is mostly about three generations of women and the choices they make regarding life, careers, and love. The male characters, especially Sarah’s twin brother Sam, are also crucial to the story.
Set on Cape Cod, the family beach house here is also a character and reflects on the people who live there and what it wishes for them. Sarah, daughter of writer Veronica who owns the house and is contemplating selling it, is Ruby’s stepmother. Sarah is married to Eli, a dentist, and also mother of their two boys, Dexter and Miles. She is a musician and head of a music school; she wonders if she should have become a concert pianist. Unexpectedly, stepdaughter Ruby announces that she and her boyfriend Gabe, who is staying with them during the pandemic, are getting married.
This is a novel of stunning secrets, wondrous first loves, and mistaken identity. A lot of action and a wide cast of characters are featured in alternating chapters. It was easily my favorite of these three beach reads. A great form of escape which will keep you guessing as to which secrets and when will they be revealed!
Note: All photos including, header photo looking to the water, are ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
