Real life, and the past, haunt the carefree existences of the super-rich socialites spending the season in Palm Beach, an exclusive island resort in Florida, USA,
Life among the fabulously wealthy sounds easy as they drift from one charity ball to another. The social scene is dominated by three widows: Carlotta Alonso whose family fled (in a forty-foot yacht) communist Cuba, animal-loving Vanessa Vine, an ex-chorus girl and gold-digger, and Louisa Caulfield whose first husband gave her Addison, a lawyer, and whose second gave her Thaddeus, a brilliant surgeon on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer. But all the money in the world can't protect you against some things. Vanessa's adopted daughter Sunny, an alcoholic, was a neglectful parent whose daughter died from an accidental overdose of mummy's powder. Thaddeus has married English Hannah, mother of one of his patients, a terminally ill little boy called Jesse and even his revolutionary new treatment can only make limited progress. And Thaddeus had mortgaged his house and invested everything he had in the company that will manufacture the wonder drug that will make them all rich ... if only it can win governmental approval.
Into this hothouse, steps Philip, a young Englishman who has come straight from Oxford to become the new head (and only, unpaid, employee) of the (newly created) marine life institute. He has discovered among his dead father's papers letters from Hannah telling his father, a world-famous poet, that she is pregnant. Jesse is his half-brother. But that's a secret.
The hurricane season is coming.
I found it difficult to care about these shallow characters, except for poor Jesse. Even he was too good to be true, being the eternally brave little soldier and never once getting depressed or angry. I longed for some real people but the hired help were either shadows (Marta and Jerzy) or anonymous (the Guatemalans). Everyone else was perfect. Philip is not only an Oxford graduate but also incredibly handsome. His father was a world-famous poet. Thaddeus is a brilliant surgeon. I longed for a hard-working but not particularly talented teacher, or for Eduardo to make cocktails that weren't very tasty, or for Jesse to be only a bit ill and really rather fed up about it. Mediocrity was missing.
It was typical of its genre in that the descriptions were all about high-status possessions, given with the breathlessness of a glossy magazine. There were the fashion notes: “Hannah had changed into a creaseless white linen sundress, ballerina flats and a wide-brimmed straw hat, stylish cat's eye sunglasses shading her eyes." (Part One: On the Nature of Toads) This segued immediately into the House and Home design section: "Bougainvillea petals floated like confetti on the kidney-shaped swimming pool behind her ... sloping gently and without steps, a fiberglass Adirondack chair sitting in the shallowest portion with a wide sun umbrella attached to its high back. From the other end of the pool rose a spacious two-storey pink stucco house with a barrel-tile roof and purple bougainvillea vines climbing the stone pillars of the loggia.” (Part One: On the Nature of Toads) From the cookery pages we learn that “The poolside bar glinting with a rainbow of bottles and fiesta bowls filled with Meyer lemons, Key limes and three types of Spanish olives." (Part Two: Friends and Neighbours) and how to make a Tootsie Roll cocktail from "vanilla vodka, Kahlua, Cointreau, orange juice and a handful of crushed ice cubes" (Part Two: Friends and Neighbours). There's even product placement: Philip wears "a Turnbull & Asser shirt.” (Part Two: Friends and Neighbours). This style of writing perfectly matched the milieu it was describing but it served to underline the shallowness and made me care even less about these people.
But they played their parts in a narrative that was never dull, if sometimes rather too full, encompassing infidelity, faith healing, insider trading, and pollution along the way. The story was further enlightened by some great descriptions and some sparks of wry humour.
The obvious comparison is with The Great Gatsby (but that has so much more anger fuelling it). I was also reminded of J G Ballard's Cocaine Nights.
Selected quotes:
- “The Porch Club [was] founded in 1918 by a group of business moguls too old to fight in the first world war but not too old to build its armaments.” (Part Two: The Big Three)
- “Philip had met his share of disheveled doctors at Oxford ( mainly of philosophy).” (Part Two: Gethsemane-on-the-Sea)
- “How I wish I could claw that shine [of youth] off him and wear it tonight.” (Part Two: Pearls, pearls and more pearls)
- “The stampeding girls were stopped in their tracks by Mrs Vine’s Silver Shadow blocking the drive. Chugging like a vintage locomotive it proceeded to the outdoor picnic table where the widow, bundled in a diaphanous violet-tinted robe and veiled raffia hat, slid like a dollop of warm butter from the creamy interior.” (Part Two: Julietta rallies the troops) I adore that last phrase.
- “It seemed to Philip that God ought to know what lay in a man's heart without having to hear him talk about it.” (Part Two: State of Grace)
June 2025; 230 pages
A limited hardback edition published by Hay Press in 2025
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