By 
Celine Keating, the Author of “The Stark Beauty of Last Things,” has written a captivating and intriguing novel. In this well-written novel, the author writes with the feel of poetry and vividly describes everything in a sensory way. The theme for this book centers around Montauk. Long Island.
Montauk and the characters are very symbolic. I love the author’s discussions about Montauk and the environment, which resonates with me with memories of my adventures with my family. The author describes her colorful and dramatic characters as complex, complicated, and diverse. The author discusses the beauty and starkness, the diversity, the wealth and the poverty, the wildness and the quietness, and the development and the ruins. Both apply to the land and the characters.
Environmental factors, political factors, forces of nature, and weather have changed both the land and the people who live and work in Montauk. People have changed, and their jobs and needs have changed. Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjustor, is an outsider and comes as a guest at a party. Once an orphan, Clancy holds trauma and secrets close to his heart. He visits his former Big Brother, and they reconnect. When his friend dies, Clancy finds himself in the position of being an executor of his estate. Part of the estate is the right to vote on the last parcel of undeveloped land.
Several characters have different opinions of what should happen to that land. This affects some business owners and the people living there. Some developers would like other areas of Montauk to be sold to make money, and the residents who live there feel the pressure to leave.
The author’s descriptions of nature, the water, the flowers, the sand, and the weather are amazing. I highly recommend this thought-provoking novel.
Linda's Book Obsession: 