There once was a book about Nantucket.....

As I suspected I would, I read all of the Elin Hildebrand books I could find on the library shelves...."Nantucket Nights" about a woman who disappears while swimming at night, "Castaways", about a couple who disappears while sailing and a woman still reeling from her twin's death on 9/11, "Barefoot", about a woman undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer and a young man still dealing with his mother's suicide, and "The Blue Bistro", about a hot restaurant's final year because...yes, the chef is dying. So, I endured the terrible heat wave reading about people on Nantucket while our two little air conditioners bravely tried to keep two little rooms cool...but what I was really reading about were rich people and death. Beach books about the dead and dying must be a new type of literature..."buried in the sand lit"??

These are not books that made me think but entertained me. The young couples in "Castaways" (except for one rich duo)have jobs including police chief, teacher, farmer, restaurant hostess and musician, yet they take group vacations without the kids to Vegas, Mexico, South Beach, England, and "The Point", which is the most expensive resort in the Adirondacks. (I just checked, and rooms for two are either $1,350 or $1,850 per night.) Plus, they own real estate on Nantucket! The assistant restaurant manager in "Blue Bistro", who arrives in Nantucket penniless, can almost immediately afford Jimmy Choo and Kate Spade shoes. In the world Hildebrand creates there are no poor or unattractive people. There I was, sweltering in my size fourteen shorts from Boscov's, drinking ginger ale out of a plastic cup hoping for a trip to "Cracker Barrel" and reading about elegance and beauty and beaches and...oh yeah, death.

As I read about the beautiful people in Hildebrand's Nantucket, my memory pulled me to our visits to Misquamicut Beach on the coast of Rhode Island. There, everyone seemed to have a minimum of three tattoos and though the women were "plus size" they proudly wore two piece bathing suits. The men smoked cigarettes non-stop and swilled cold beers, and the kids wore loaded pull-ups and ate french fries with a side of cotton candy, the kind that comes in a plastic bag. (I just checked, and an entire house in that area can be rented for $1,500 per week.) I know I would read a book about the folks who vacation there, because right now I am reading a book of short stories about just these people. The stories are funny, beautiful, thought-provoking, deeply sad, and make me wish, more than anything, that I had the author's gift. The book is "Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-eyed Stranger" and the author is my idol, Lee Smith.

Enjoy all the beach books you want this summer...but when you want to think and feel and be happy just to be alive, read one of Lee Smith's new stories.