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Executive Times |
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2007 Book Reviews |
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Summer
Reading by Hilda Wolitzer |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Shallow The
action in Hilma Wolitzer’s latest novel, Summer
Reading, takes place in the Hamptons with a summer reading group. A half
dozen women could turn into interesting characters, but sympathy for them
never develops. Two narrators alternate chapters, providing some change of
pace. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 3, “Them,” pp. 19-21: Every
year they came down “Them”
was what they were called behind their backs by the bonackers, especially
when a matter of service was involved. “I’m catering for them again on Her
mother, Jo Ann, had gotten her this new job through one of her own regulars
in Sagaponack. Michelle had filled in there on occasion, and had obviously
passed muster. It would have been hard not to, under Jo Ann’s direction. She
was about one rung above a slave herself, and she expected everybody else to
kiss up and knuckle under, too. Michelle wasn’t allowed to take a break, hide
somewhere for a quick smoke, or even lapse into a daydream. “They don’t pay
you good money just to stand around posing,” Jo Ann would remind her. Now
here she was on her own, at another house where the occupants couldn’t take
a dump for themselves. But the money really was good: thirty bucks an hour,
and all the hours she could spare. It sure beat clerking at Kmart for peanuts
or—except for the company— doing small-animal care at the county shelter.
This was her third day in a row. As
soon as she’d come in that morning, she made the sandwiches and the tea for
some club meeting. Jo Ann had taught her how to do little sandwiches for
them—rolled and sliced into pinwheels, or using cookie cutters shaped like
diamonds and hearts. No crusts, of course, smears of this and that from
gourmet shop plastic containers, sprigs of fresh herbs, and all of it
arranged in a tiered, starburst pattern. After
she’d made the bed and vacuumed and straightened the bathrooms, Michelle had
walked around with a big yellow sponge in her hand, looking for something
else to do, another surface from which she could erase any visible signs of
life. But the place was as spotless as a model home. She found herself
looking up again and again at the kitchen clock, willing the hands to move. Michelle’s
brother, Eddie, and her boyfriend, Hank, were making extra money off some of
them, too, most of it in cold cash and off the books, for odd jobs like
putting up deer fencing or cleaning out rain gutters. The two men also ran a
small party boat, the Kayla Joy— named
for Hank’s fourteen-year-old daughter—on weekends. Six to a fishing party and
ninety bucks a head for four hours (double that for eight), and their
passengers all went home happy, with bad sunburns and a couple of fillets
they could have picked up at Citarella for a lot less. Once
upon a time, before the invasion of the summer people, it had been primarily
a fishing and farming community. There were still some commercial boats going
out each morning for blues and striped bass, and enough fields of corn and
cauliflower to keep the farm stands going. But
there were more party boats now—most of them bigger than the Kayla Joy—and more nurseries, growing
white pines for privacy, and hibiscus for decorative gardens. A
fifty-year-old hardware store had been replaced by a jewelry store called
Bling! and a diner once favored by the fishermen, who used to get breakfast
there at 4 AM before setting out, now sold souvenirs. Why did they need
T-shirts and golf caps to remind them where they were? Michelle
was positive that Lissy Snyder had forgotten her name and felt too
embarrassed now to ask her to repeat it. That’s why she kept saying “Hi!” in
her chirpy chipmunk voice and wore that goofy smile whenever they ran into
each other in the house. Michelle could almost hear the wheels turning in
that dopey blond head. Marie? Margaret? She was thinking of writing her name
in lipstick or soap across the fun-house mirror in Lissy’s dressing room, the
one that made Michelle look as bad as she had in her yearbook photo before it
was touched up. Summer
Reading is shallow and light, and that might be perfect for summer
reading. If you’re able to develop any care at all about what happens to
these characters, you’re likely to enjoy Summer
Reading. If you don’t find that in the first thirty pages, read something
else. Steve
Hopkins, November 20, 2007 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the December 2007 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Summer Reading.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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