Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Set on the fictional island of Waskeke in New England, (although probably inspired by Martha’s Vineyard) Seating arrangements is about each person’s place in a family
Seating Arrangements
What you need to know before your trail
The Van Meters have gathered at their family retreat on the New England island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne to an impeccably appropriate young man. The weekend is full of lobster and champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust seep through the cracks in the revelry.
Winn Van Meter, father-of-the-bride, has spent his life following the rules of the east coast upper crust, but now, just shy of his sixtieth birthday, he must finally confront his failings, his desires, and his own humanity.
Travel Guide
Set on the fictional island of Waskeke in New England
Waskeke is probably inspired by Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Seating arrangements is about each person’s place in a family – their expected behaviour and their place and role in the family but as with seating arrangements at a wedding, sometimes the person you get placed with provides the most weird results of all.
Seating arrangements places the most disparate characters together on a desert island – the background sounds idyllic –
There was a little lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor where by tradition passengers on outbound ferries tossed pennies off the side. Livia has said as a child that the sea floor there must look like the scales of a fish and, ever since, the same thought had come to Winn as he passed the lighthouse: A large copper fish slumbering below…..
Winn Van Meter and his family have gathered at their retreat in Waskeke in order to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Daphne. Inside of a calm peace reigning, the time they are there will be spent amidst simmering resentment, lust and completely inappropriate behaviour.
The bride and groom will have to endure wedding preparations with a difference. What sort of wedding surprises will the family present them with on this holiday isle?
“The slowness of the drive and the ferry crossing made the journey more meaningful, the island more remote”
More of a character study than a booktrail study in setting, nevertheless the novel provinces an ideal atmosphere of Lobsters, champagne, salt sea air and the glistening waters around New England. Maybe that’s what enhances the characters and their bad behaviour so much for when dark characters are set against whitewashed walls, they really stand out. There are some beach scenes and the theme of a summer wedding hangs in the air so if you read it on a beach you may well want to look over your sunglasses at the characters on the sunloungers next to you.
The interior of the island was occupied mostly by scrublands called the moors, low hills with sharp, rusty vegetation and boney crooked trees’
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Don’t be prepared to like the characters at all, or even their preppy sounding names but just keep in mind that the novel is clearly a criticism in some part of the WASP mentality and lifestyle. But the one scene that will leave an everlasting on my mind is the one with the whale… oh and the ‘sick’ lobster, no but the whale…
For a final flavour of a taste of the book from the father of the bride’s speech – Marriage even a happy marriage like my own and like I’m sure yours will be, is a precursor to death…’
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