Narrated consecutively by five different characters: the beautiful forceful Nick, her daughter Daisy, downtrodden cousin Helena, handsome husband Nick and Helena's trouble son Ed, Klaussman effortlessly evokes the life of the glamorous top echelon of East Coast American society. Tiger House is the island holiday home of Nick and her ancestors. Their yacht bobs at the end of the dock, days are spent playing tennis, nights at the club drinking martinis. We move back and forth through time as events are narrated from the different character's perspectives, from Nick and Helena's time living together in the late 1940s awaiting their husbands' return from World War II and Hughes' time in wartime Europe, through their first days as full time wives, to the late 1950s with Daisy and Ed as tweens, to the late 1960s, counter culture beginning to percolate even into the island world of pastel dresses and sports blazers, Daisy and Ed now full grown. Beneath the polished and dazzling surface of this world lie bitter misunderstandings, secret passions and damaging secrets. This could have dissolved into cliche, but the quality of Klaussman's writing never this, each of her characters speaks with clarity and individuality. Her descriptions evoke the world of Tiger House in all its summer heat, scents and colours are vivid: flowers, privilege, perfume.
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