“I want to be able to understand the novel half-drunk on rosé. The sentences should breeze by like a handsome man on a Vespa on the Montauk Highway.”
That’s how humorist Celeste Ballard described her summer reading preferences in a 2014 New Yorker piece.
She lost me at “Vespa” and “Montauk Highway” but also got me thinking about what makes for a great summer read. And is what you pick to put in your beach bag really all that different from what lays next to your chair in front of the fire in January?
I’m not convinced. But the publishing industry sure is.
Take Elin Hillenbrand. The queen of so-called “beach reads” has put out her last novel based on Nantucket summers and characters. I bought “Swan Song” and devoured it in a couple days. It was fun and entertaining and as well-written as anything she has done (I’m a fan of the writing skill of this Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum.)
Would I have enjoyed the story of rich and devious summer interlopers as much if I were reading it on a snowy Sunday afternoon? In below-zero temperatures? After shoveling? Yes, I think so.
I want a novel to transport me somewhere interesting, to see it with new eyes if I’ve been there, to feel as if I have been there if I haven’t. I want characters I relate to or care about. I don’t need the weather outside to match the weather-appropriate clothing worn by my current read’s protagonist.
Some authors have pushed back against — but ultimately embraced — being dubbed a beach read writer. Jennifer Weiner, author of “Good In Bed” and “Big Summer,” among others, is one.
“Fast-paced, diverting books that are by or for men are called thrillers or mysteries or sometimes just plain old books, while the ladies get every kind of label, from chick lit to women’s fiction to upmarket women’s fiction to domestic fiction to, well, beach books,” she says.
To test my hypothesis that the label “beach reads” is as made up a marketing device as Valentine’s Day, I took a look at the indie best-seller list, at my to-be-read (TBR) pile and asked some discerning reader friends what their view is.
The indie hardcover fiction bestseller list seems to back up that the beach read is a myth.
Number one this past week was “The Women” by Kristin Hannah. If you haven’t read it, scoot down to Saltwater Bookstore or the newly reopened library and get a copy. You will cry, you will shoo away your family when they try to interrupt your reading, you will stay up until 3 a.m. You will be in awe of the women who served as nurses in Vietnam. You will be grateful for the great care with which the author researched and told their stories. What you won’t do is call this treasure a beach read.
I’m an impulse buyer. I read a great review and run out and get the book. A friend raves about the book they just finished, and I add it to my pile. The “new and notable” tables at local bookstores? I’m like a problem gambler walking by slot machines. Have to play them. New titles? Have to buy them.
I’ve written in the past about how my TBR pile threatens to tip over and take me out. That hasn’t changed. Place one more book on the tower and, boom, I’ll surely be concussed.
This summer, I’ve bought two of Hillenbrand’s, including an old one I missed but am told is great, called “Summer of ’69.” Also “Sandwich,” by Catherine Newman, about family drama on a Cape vacation.
And I am a virtual lemming when it comes to Reese Witherspoon’s recommendations. Reese says to jump off a bridge, I say “OK, and what should I read as I’m falling to my end?”
This month she says, “The Cliffs” by J. Courtney Sullivan. I should have worn a hard hat as I placed it ever so carefully atop the pile.
I know I am undermining my own case, so I’ll try to recover by arguing that I’d read any of the above at any time of year. And that these, too, are awaiting their turn to be tucked next to the watermelon and sunscreen: “Us, After,” the memoir by Rachel Zimmerman about life with her two young children after her husband committed suicide; “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women” by Lisa See, who is known for engrossing multi-generational stories about women in Asian cultures; and the nonfiction “Your Table Is Ready” by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina about this New York City maître d’s adventures. Again, all the kind of books I’m drawn to all year round.
What do some discerning reader (DR) friends have to say?
DR #1 gives a very slight nod to the beach read imprimatur, preferring “slightly less challenging but no less intelligent” summer reads.
DR #2, who is most drawn lately to “books with clever or quirky plot and characters that are easy to engage with,” says her “reading habits don’t change based on season.”
DR # 3 concurs, “I’m drawn to the same kind of books regardless of the season.”
The final word goes to the author Weiner: “The important thing to remember is that any book that you read on the beach is, by definition, a beach book. You can plow your way through that difficult Russian classic you never got around to in graduate school, or you can go for escape and entertainment, without apology. Beach books are a primal pleasure, and there should never be a reason to feel bad about feeling good.”
Dear readers, what’s your take on the great beach read debate, and what are you reading these sun-dappled days? Drop us a line a info@marbleheadnews.org, and if we get enough responses maybe we can start our own book club — with meetings held at the beach, of course.
Marblehead resident Virginia Buckingham is the president of the Current’s board of directors.
