Four women. Each at a crossroads in her life. Each unsure what her future will be like, aside from the fact that it will bear no resemblance to her recent past. One beautiful summer on Nantucket island leads to personal discoveries, revelations, growth... Transformations.
Sound like the theme of a excellent summer novel? honestly it is, courtesy once again of Nancy Thayer, author of Summer House, Moon Shell Beach, The Hot Flash Club, and Between Husbands and Friends.
Dollhouse Families
Synopsis:
The three Fox girls' mother, Danielle, brought her daughters to the beach at least once a week, all year long, to scour it for treasures. They would take them home and vote to see who had discovered the best treasure, with the winning discovery proudly displayed in the house kitchen on the shelf between the cookbooks. "Whatever the weather, the surf always brought treasures; their mother had taught them that." And it was their mother who started the Beachcombers Club.
Abbie is the oldest of the three sisters. She hasn't been home to Nantucket -- or seen her father and sisters -- for nearly two years. A series of distressed emails force her back from London.
Emma had it all: A victorious career as a broker with an venture firm in Boston from which she took extraordinary vacations with her fiancee and fellow broker, Duncan Fairly. And then the financial store collapsed, taking with it her own savings, the money she had invested in high-risk markets for her father, her job... And her fiancee who announced a few months later that he was in love with other still-employed broker. Emma has returned to Nantucket. Devastated and depressed, she isn't budging from her bed.
And Lilly is the youngest. At twenty-two, she has not yet left home. She writes a weekly communal column for Nantucket Talk which means, essentially, that she attends all of the summer events and reports who makes an appearance, what they wore, who they were with. If she's lucky, the attendees grant her an interview.
The girls' father, Jim, a contractor, finds himself struggling to make ends meet when his business suffers an economic downturn. A small bungalow adjacent to the house home served as a playhouse for the girls when they were growing up. Now it generates much-needed wage for Jim as a summer rental for Marina, whose friend advised her to go to Nantucket for the summer to spend time resting, relaxing, and healing after her marriage disintegrated.
Jim has remained singular in the years following the mysterious sudden death of his wife. His protective daughters, all back home for the summer, are not sure they want their father to move on with his life -- especially when theirs are all in a state of turmoil and it looks like the woman he might be interested in is none other than Marina, their new tenant.
Abbie and Emma advertise their services as Nantucket Mermaids, available to perform small, odd jobs nearby the island. Abbie signs on to babysit adorable but troubled Harry, whose mother is a Type A shrew, while Emma spends her afternoons reading to elderly Millicent Bracebridge, an island native whose eyesight is failing. Lily, meanwhile, lands a job as the personal assistant of a wealthy older socialite. And the once career-driven Marina learns to live her life at a slower pace as she evaluates her options.
Of course, there are men: microscopic Harry has a kind-hearted, desirable father, Howell, for whom Abbie falls hard. Mrs. Bracebridge has an intelligent, available grandson, Spencer, and Lily is courted by a local boy, Jason, who dreams modest dreams that don't involve living anywhere other than Nantucket. Whenever men are involved, there are complications, drama, and angst. Beachcombers proves there is no irregularity to that rule.
Review:
Bestselling author Nancy Thayer has lived on Nantucket for twenty-five years. Like an artist lovingly and painstakingly applying oil paint to a blank canvas, Thayer's familiarity with and love of the island paint a vivid portrait of the discrete locales where the performance unfolds. The consequent is that Nantucket itself becomes a character in the story. Into her narrative, Thayer also injects island history and customs, as well as communal commentary about the manner in which the summer people look with disdain upon the year-round island residents, contextually undergirding much of the drama.
Who wouldn't be drawn to spend a summer in the seaside bungalow Marina rents from Jim? "It resembled a dollhouse, with wild roses rambling all over the roof and clematis and wisteria blossoming on the trellis on the outside walls. The windows were mullioned like a fairy-tale cottage. The door was animated blue.... Windows on three sides provided views of the birds nesting in an apple tree on her right, a pine tree on her left, and a hawthorn tree straight ahead." The bungalow is situated in the heart of the town, "off an idyllic lane in the noted historic district. She could walk to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the post office, the library. Tucked away at the far end of a long garden, it had once been the Playhouse for the family..." It is easy to empathize with Marina's perception that, fresh from her husband's betrayal, the island's "flamboyant, kind beauty both hurt and healed her. Some days the intensity of the wild blue sea, the dense clouds of pink climbing roses, flew straight to her heart like an arrow, searing her with emotions,... But some days the beauty soothed her, even cheered her." Mired in dissatisfaction and heartbreak, Marina longs only to be able to walk along the beach with a smile on her face. Nantucket's shore beckons her closer, along with the reader.
Thayer effectively conveys her innate understanding of women's thoughts and emotions by supplying dialogue to her female characters that is believable and authentic. Possibly no relationship on earth is as complicated, multi-layered or impenetrable than that of sisters. That Thayer clearly understands the complexities of sisters' relationships is underscored by the fact that not a singular word of the Fox girls' many conversations seems contrived or out of place. Rather, the rhythm of the sisters' discussions rings true, providing understanding into each character's back story and motivations.
Through the girls' verbal sparring, the dynamics of their personel relationships with each other surface. Nowhere is this more clear than in Lily's pouty outbursts. The youngest sister, Lily feels left out of what she perceives is a incommunicable sorority into which membership has only been granted to Abbie and Emma, as when she protests their becoming the Nantucket Mermaids without along with her. Lily was only seven years old when their mother died and her strongest memory is of her mother singing her lullabies. Abbie was forced to come to be a substitute mother to Lily and, essentially, raise her, as well as, to a lesser degree, Emma. But at twenty-two, Lilly, who has remained at home with their father after the two older girls went off to live elsewhere, resents Abbie's restoration of her motherly role, especially when Abbie and Emma push Lily to be take on more responsibility for household maintenance. The two older girls express their exasperation with the baby sister they think is spoiled and privileged straight through their own childish attempts at revenge, such as when Emma refuses to loan Lily her stylish clothing to wear to a communal event upon which Lily is reporting. The siblings' love-hate relationships are, at times, hilariously familiar and always heart-tuggingly recognizable.
In increasing to Nantucket itself, Thayer supplies a discrete and animated cast of supporting characters, along with wealthy socialite Eartha Yardley, one of the summer people, who needs Lily to help her with cataloguing her wardrobe and jewels, and ensure that she does not wear the same ensemble to any two events. In contrast, matriarch Millicent Bricebridge is a sly old native who is as devoted to the island and her family's contributions to its heritage as she is to looking her grandson live a happy and fulfilled life, despite his greedy mother's interference and machinations.
And then there are the four men at the town of the girls' and Marina's lives. Jim is honestly the most fully developed and empathetic. He has deferred his own happiness not only because of his daughters' needs, but also because of the guilt he has kept to himself about his marriage and his inability to save the girls' mother. When his relationship with Marina falters, his reactions are believable and well-founded in long-held fears, his behavior convincingly exasperating.
Less sympathetic is Howell. Harry's father becomes too speedily dependent upon Abbie to salvage him and his young son from an ill-conceived marriage.
Two aspects of Beachcombers are troublesome. A consolidate of plot developments unfold too quickly, the prime example being Abbie's affair with Howell. It would have been more believable and satisfying if the romance had been allowed to evolve a bit more gradually, although mutual attraction can sometimes be unexpected and come to be apparent quite suddenly.
Secondly, one aspect of the story that seemed a bit contrived was the fate of Marina's former best friend. That shocking plot development serves as the impetus for Marina's immediate need to make a primary decision about her future. The dramatic tension logically builds to the point that Marina must select where and with whom she will spend her life. However, the plot device employed by Thayer felt very implausible, too comfortably thrusting Marina's story into overdrive and demanding resolution.
Both complaints are minor, though, in light of the fact that Beachcombers never bogs down, holding the reader's interest to the very last word on the very last page.
Beachcombers is accurately heralded by the publisher as being "full of both abundant joy and heart-wrenching sorrow." Thayer is an master at evoking a plethora of emotions from her readers and Beachcombers does not disappoint in that regard.
The haunting opportunity scene of the three young girls at the beach with their mother, and later revelation of what honestly happened between their parents and, ultimately, to their mother, beautifully illustrates how the girls' histories led them to their current personel states of crisis. Thayer's story finally succeeds by proving Dylan Thomas wrong. You can go home again... To mourn the past, to gather your force and courage, to value what has transpired in your life, to remember who you love and who loves you, and plot your future course. And reclaim the treasures that you left there long ago. Amid the familiarity of that place you call home and the people who inhabit it, you might also find some unexpected, new treasures. You might find hope. Like the Fox sisters and Marina, you might just find yourself transformed.
Pack your beach tote, development sure you have a copy of Beachcombers tucked inside, along with your sunscreen, water, towel, and the other things you will need for a relaxing day at the beach or by the pool. Then get comfortable, sit back, and lose yourself in the story of the Fox sisters on the island of Nantucket... You will thoroughly enjoy your time on the island.
Book recap - Beachcombers
