Family dysfunction goes on holiday in this new book by J. Courtney Sullivan. I had hoped for escape; I love beach reads, living vicariously in other peoples' cottage and cabin adventures. I especially love the idea of a family vacation home, where generations return year after year, making memories and securing family relationships by time spent sharing meals, beach towels, sweatshirts, campfires, and cocktails. It's a beautiful thing, in theory. The reality, as it plays out in the Kelleher family is squabbles over whose week or month is whose, expectations of inheritance, petty remarks made after perhaps one or two too many cocktails...not at all what I like to imagine. I'm sure, given the chance, different Kellehers may have had enough delightful memories to fill a book of equal size, but then we readers would have been especially disappointed to learn of Alice's plans to donate the cottages and land to the local Catholic parish (not really a spoiler there). As it is, with very little to envy or admire in any of these troubled characters, readers may feel like it's all just as well. Still, I enjoyed reading about the house and its surroundings, about how the family came to own it, about the oldest daughter's Calif. worm farm, and learning about the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire of 1942. I'm recommending, but not raving.
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