Siracusa

An intimate, suspenseful story of two American couples--whose marriages are in crisis--vacationing in Sicily.

Delia Ephron (Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.) turns an idyllic Sicilian vacation upside-down in Siracusa, a novel about two sophisticated American couples in their 40s. Told through shifting timelines and four points of view, the story reveals the couples' shared history and the restlessness they are facing in their respective marriages. 

Lizzie and Michael, struggling writers, are a childless couple from New York. Lizzie is a long-form journalist, and Michael is a famous author and riveting raconteur who secretly wants out of the marriage, as he is in love with a younger woman. Finn and Taylor are from Maine. Their daughter, Snow, is tagging along on the trip; she is a beautiful but deeply repressed--and impressionable--10-year-old, with a condition called "Extreme Shyness Syndrome." Finn owns a restaurant and is resentful of Taylor, a cultured heiress who smothers their daughter with care and attention. Finn, too, harbors secret romantic longings of his own. Upping the ante is the fact that Lizzie and Finn were once an item. The two perpetually flirt with each other, provoking the ire of their spouses.

Ephron writes colorful repartee and backhanded insults, revealing the foursome's jealousies, lies and betrayals that further ignite when an unexpected visitor crashes their holiday. The atmospheric details of historic Sicily serve as a remarkable backdrop to the characters' personal conflicts, rendering Siracusa as a dark, psychologically astute story about the limits of marriage and friendship.

Siracusa: A Novel by Delia Ephron

Blue Rider Press, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780399165214, 304 pages

Publication Date:  July 12, 2016

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NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 22, 2016 ), link HERE

Summer Family Sagas

The summer months may turn up the heat, but nowhere as profoundly as within extended families that come together to share vacation time. No matter the idyllic setting or good intentions, when loved ones gather, fireworks often ensue--making for some great drama on the page.

In The Red House by Mark Haddon, estranged British siblings Richard and Angela reunite at their mother's funeral. Afterward, Richard, a wealthy physician with a new wife and a wretched teenage daughter, invites Angela, her feckless husband and their three teenage children to his big country home in Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border. As the polyphonic narrative unfolds, the reader comes to realize that these eight people--with vastly different personalities, operating systems and agendas--have brought a lot more baggage with them than meets the eye.

Fourth of July weekend in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts is the backdrop for The World Without You by Joshua Henkin. Shared grief and mourning unite the Frankels--a large, mostly nonobservant Jewish-American family--as they gather for a weekend at their parents' vacation home to unveil the gravestone for their brother Leo, a journalist and adventurer killed in Iraq a year earlier. But once everyone is settled beneath the same roof, the memorial becomes shrouded by sibling rivalries and marital feuds in this story of love, loss and the true meaning of family in the aftermath of tragedy.

Catholic guilt, alcoholism and bad choices are the undercurrents that propel J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine. The story is told via the distinct viewpoints of three generations of women from the Irish-American Kelleher clan who assemble, with their respective families and significant others, for their annual summer retreat at a cottage set on three acres of Maine beachfront property. Over the course of a month, family secrets are gradually unveiled that probe the relationships between the women, blurring the line between love and anger. 

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (8/3/12), link HERE