Written by Anita Shreve (1946-2018), this came out in 2007. Its action spans the years 2002 to 2005.

It was complete coincidence that I read it in parallel with The Wedding People. Both books can be classified as beach reads. Both are set in New England (this one in New Hampshire). Both feature people larking about in the sea. Both give us a wedding with an unexpected outcome. But alongside the sparkling story of The Wedding People, with its large dose of humour and its likeable central character, Body Surfing just feels a bit flat.



I'm going to go through the story (beware spoilers), because I'm still trying to figure out why it doesn't work.

Sydney Sklar, who's employed at the Edwards family's beach residence to teach the 18-year-old daughter, Julie (artistically talented but intellectually "slow"), is only in her late twenties, but she has already been married twice. Once to Andrew, an "air racer", whom she divorces because of the constant apprehension his passion engenders in her; and a second time to Daniel, a doctor, who suddenly -- and more than a little ironically -- dies.

As a character, Sydney never really takes off. She's had a terrible time, but readers need a bit more than that... We hear a bit more about her background, but none of it seems to ultimately matter.

Then the sons of the family, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house. They're in their thirties (much older, then, than Julie). That first night, Sydney goes swimming with them. She feels an intrusive touch under the water. She thinks it's Ben. She doesn't check (why?), but it predisposes her against him.

In short order we then have Julie's disappearance (she comes back drunk, but no explanation is forthcoming); Jeff's announcement that his relationship with Victoria is off; the rapid initiation of a relationship with Sydney, who kind of follows along passively in his wake; and Julie's decision to run away.


Another good excuse for some seaside pictures from Calvi, Corsica

That's all 2002. Then we're in 2003, and the section opens with the preparations for Sydney and Jeff's wedding. After this, we go back to fill in the interim period.

The night Julie runs away is also the night of the big fight between Ben and Jeff. Ben seems to resent his brother's relationship with Sydney. We don't know why yet.

They eventually find Julie in Montreal with a young woman called Helene, whom she has met on the beach. They're now a couple. I'm not totally sure what this whole side-plot contributes, apart from a bit of much-needed tension.

Then Sydney and Jeff get engaged, and Sydney wants to repair the rift between the brothers, and make sure Ben will come to the wedding. He says he won't come, but prophesies: "He'll never love you as much as you love him."

Ben does actually turn up. And on the day scheduled for the ceremony, lo and behold, Jeff announces he doesn't want to go through with it...

It turns out Jeff started up the relationship with Sydney because he spotted that Ben was attracted to her. He had already done this with Victoria (Ben's girlfriend before Jeff lured her away).

I'm honestly not sure how plausible all that is... And it's presented very prosaically.



Finally, we catch up with them all again in 2005. Sydney takes the opportunity offered by a conference to go and take one more look at the beach house. Again, why would you do that...?

Ben finds her on the beach (of course), and brings her up to date with the family news. Nice Mr Edwards has died. His rather snippy wife has decided to sell the house. Ben has bought a tumbledown old place out on Frederick's Island.

We reprise the Jeff/Ben thing, from Ben's point of view. But nothing is really added, and it's all rather clunky:

"I realized that even Jeff's taking Victoria had been deliberate. I could forgive him the first time, but not the second, and he knew it."
"But why did he do it?"
Ben is hesitant. "He saw I noticed you, so he wanted you... End of story."
"That was it?" Sydney asks.
"That was it."
"And I let him have me."
"So you did."

We learn that the brothers had always been very competitive. Jeff couldn't match up to his older brother in certain areas, but he "got very, very good at getting women". And Sydney recognizes that she was seduced not only by Jeff but by the beauty of the place and the sense of family.

In a final conversation with Ben, it turns out that the unwelcome underwater touch that first day must have been Jeff's. "We were had," she tells Ben, "Both of us."



***

This is actually the fourth in a series called The Fortune's Rocks Quartet. Possibly, it makes more sense read in that context. The four stories are discrete, as far as I can tell, but they are all set in the same coastal New England house, which served as Shreve's inspiration for over a decade.

To me, it felt as though there was something missing from the whole thing. Selfish male, acting out his desire to be one-up on his older brother, hurts naive and vulnerable woman. Somehow that storyline didn't fly. And Sydney's passivity is just incredible.

Having complained about Jerome Ferrari and his long, dense paragraphs, it sounds a bit Goldilocks to complain about the way Shreve, conversely, sprawls over the page... The writing comes in quick bursts, often with disconcertingly short sentences. Here we have LOTS of space separating the paragraphs or short groups of paragraphs; plus there are section markers (asterisks or funny squiggles -- I was never sure quite what kind of section each mark denoted). Somehow all these breaks make it all feel a bit disjointed.

We do, however, get some nice beach and sea description:

"A slant of sunlight falls on a diagonal across the water. Sydney can see, in the slice, particles and bits, the stuff of atmosphere. For a brief moment, the sea has vibrant color. A gull, giddy and soaring, takes on a coral hue. Sydney sits up straight -- anyone would -- marveling at this trick of light. She longs for it to linger, knows that it won't."

And Shreve is good at domestic description, too: Furnishings, families round tables, melees in kitchens, that sort of thing.

I could feel the house, and feel the beach. But this painstakingly rendered background seemed like a stage waiting for actors who never really showed up.