Dan's Papers - June 27, 2008 - Dan's Book Review: The Beach House

No, this beach house is not in the Hamptons. In Jane Green's novel the setting is Nantucket, where an old oceanfront manse called Windermere has been the illustrious Powell family's home for generations. Its indefatigable owner, Nan Powell, a plucky, eccentric widow, in dire need of money, opens a B&B and works loving magic on an assortment of marital misfits who wash up on her shores.

There's Nan's son, Michael, fleeing New York City and an ill-advised love affair with his married boss, Jordana, who follows him to Nantucket after he's lost interest. The shallow Jordana consoles herself by knocking Nantucket in favor of Hamptons glitz. "Jordana loves the Hamptons. Loves stocking up on her Calypso tops and Miss Trish sandals, her armfuls of diamond bangles - because you never know who you'll bump into having dinner at Nick and Toni's."

Then there's Daniel and Bee, whose difficulties arise because Daniel is a little late in admitting his same-sex attraction. With Nan's help, Daniel meets handsome Matt, a Nantucket gardener. For another couple, Daff and Richard, it's Richard's extramarital affair that causes the problem, but lo and behold, Daff and the aforementioned Michael are soon canoodling.

These players and a few of their kids all wind up at Windermere, seeking love, finding it, losing it, finding it again. It's all very predictable. Don't worry if you're half asleep when you read it - the main characters constantly ruminate aloud about how they feel, why they're in pain and what they're seeking. It reads like the scenario for a soap opera, in which every character must be explained in detail.

Over and over, Green explains instead of revealing through dialogue and action. She puts banal lines in her characters' mouths, like, "I guess life just got in the way," and "I have always believed there's more to life than money." Richard's paramour "had forgotten what it was like to laugh." And this jarring sentence from a female author, "Like all women, Jordana is something of a chameleon, able to adapt to whoever her man wants her to be." Green should be getting a strongly worded note from the National Organization for Women.

The characters staying at Windermere may be screwed up, but in one scene, Daff, Michael and Daniel congratulate themselves on how genuine and down-to-earth they are compared to those hedge fund guys with their mansions in the Hamptons.

If you're a fan of Green's, and plan to read this novel, stop now. We're about to reveal an astounding plot development, a coincidence that will leave you breathless, or just make you leave the book.

After Bee's father, Everett, has an accident, Bee brings him from his home in Connecticut to Nantucket to recuperate. It is then that we learn Everett is actually Nan's supposedly dead husband, and father of Michael. He faked his suicide many years ago to escape gambling debts, and has since made a fortune in New Haven selling "steel locks" and investing in real estate, and started a new family.

Of course everyone comes out all right in the end, except for the hateful Jordana, who is probably eating lotus at Nick and Toni's.

A devious developer was planning to snag Windermere, tear it down and build a bunch of McMansions, but a sensitive fellow named Stephen drops out of the sky to buy the joint and restore it. He even lets Nan build a cottage on part of the property. Bee stays in Nantucket with her daughter to write a memoir of the Powell family. Daff and Michael make love on "a whaler" that Michael has been "painstakingly oiling." (Since he's not gay, we presume he's working on a boat, not a buddy, but we never heard of anyone oiling a boat. Sounds dangerously slippery.) Anyway, "As the pair of them sink to the deck of the boat, the water laps gently around them and the seagulls cry overhead." Those poor gulls put up with a lot from the summer people.

Jane Green is reputed to be one of the top producers of "chick lit," though the characters in The Beach House are a little old for "chicks." A couple of them would better fit into a new category called "mom lit" - for readers who are not so young, married with kids and having marital problems.