{"id":1127,"date":"2012-11-20T06:42:39","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T06:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2012-11-20T07:21:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T07:21:25","slug":"seating-arrangements-by-maggie-shipstead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1127","title":{"rendered":"Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Blue Door 24 May 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

320pp, paperback, \u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Caroline Sanderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

For some reason, I initially misread the title of this brilliant debut novel as Sleeping Arrangements<\/em>. But actually, it turned out a not entirely inappropriate Freudian slip.<\/p>\n

Seating Arrangements<\/em> delves deliciously into the lives of the well-to-do Van Meter family whose apparently ordered world is so regimented that a tennis ball hangs from a string in the garage to show the exact position where a car should be parked. The action of the novel is also neatly confined, taking place over the two days immediately preceding the wedding of Princeton-educated Daphne Van Meter to affable Greyson Duff. Daphne is already seven months pregnant, a departure from convention that perturbs her dyed-in-the-WASP father, Winn. Brought up to revere all the certainties of the clubbable East Coast \u2018aristocracy\u2019, Winn made an eminently suitable marriage to the unflappable Biddy. She \u2013 cool, collected and clad in plain linen – is now masterminding arrangements (seating and otherwise) for her daughter\u2019s impending nuptials at the family\u2019s venerable holiday home on the fictional island of Wakeke. Shipstead based Wakeke on the real Massachusetts island of Nantucket where she took up residence whilst writing the book.<\/p>\n

This island sojourn perhaps explains the maritime tang which permeates the story, from the lavish lobster banquet the Van Meters throw for the wedding principals two days before the wedding to the sperm whale which perishes on a nearby beach. Its sad demise particularly distresses marine biologist Livia, the younger of the Van Meter\u2019s two daughters, whose love life has been similarly washed up since her dumping, devastated and pregnant, by the son of another establishment island family. Her subsequent abortion has left her feeling keelhauled in the face of her sister\u2019s contented fecundity, particularly when she keeps being told that there are \u2018other fish in the sea\u2019.<\/p>\n

The wedding gathering pitches the Van Meters into the company of the extended Duff clan, which includes Greyson\u2019s three brothers; and of Daphne\u2019s three closest friends who are to act as bridesmaids. As these maids of honour descend on his house with their weekend paraphernalia (\u2018Make-up brushes were everywhere, abandoned helter-skelter as though by the fleeing beauticians of Pompeii\u2019), Winn struggles to quell his stirrings for one of them, the earthily attractive Agatha for whom he has long burnt a sexual torch. As the party heats up and a lake of alcohol is consumed, cautions are thrown to the offshore winds, true colours are run up flagpoles, and, yes, sleeping arrangements come to preoccupy the characters rather than those for seating.\u00a0 By the time Daphne and Greyson make it up the aisle, the carapaces of convention with which the Van Meters have hitherto armoured themselves have been torn away, leaving them as exposed as the unfortunate lobsters devoured by their guests the previous evening.<\/p>\n

Shipstead, a native of Orange County, California, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop, has written a novel as beadily perceptive of the tides of family life as anything by Anne Tyler or Carol Shields. Though the story focuses primarily on Winn and Livia, each character has a turn in the limelight, as Shipstead deftly orchestrates a slow reveal of the events which have led up to the present conjunction of egos, erotic tensions and emotional allergies. This is, moreover, my favourite kind of book; the kind which frequently halts you in your tracks, and bids you go back and savour whole sentences again. I frequently found myself exclaiming in delight at the precision with which Shipstead nails her characters. Duff grandmother Oatsie, who is \u2018imperious, brusque and given to non-sequitur\u2019 tells Livia, \u2018You\u2019d make a wonderful lawyer. You have lovely hair.\u2019 Meg, daughter of Jack Fenn, Winn\u2019s social nemesis, stands in sneakers which \u2018nose each other like a pair of kissing trout\u2019. Daphne\u2019s exotic friend Dominique shucks corn, her eyebrows \u2018curved in tildes of concentration\u2019. Celeste, Biddy\u2019s dipsomaniac sister, \u2018hovers vampirically\u2019 as the Duffs unpack flasks of special recipe Bloody Mary. Sterling, the louchest of the Duff brothers knocks back a whisky, and his eyes turn dark as if \u2018Oatsie had kicked his plug out of the wall\u2019.<\/p>\n

What I also love about this novel is that Shipstead\u2019s comedy, however razor-witted, is never vicious, but rather brooks a deep, psychological understanding of her characters. Her principals are shown in all their complexity, and the author\u2019s attention to just the right details means that we are never at a loss as to what brought them to the states they are in.<\/p>\n

All this and cultured pearls of wisdom too. Dominique; coolly observant, and the nearest thing in the novel to a Greek chorus, is moved to utter the wonderful maxim that female friendship is \u2018one-tenth prevention and nine-tenths clean-up\u2019.<\/p>\n

I will be astonished if I read a novel I admire more all year. In spite of getting the title wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Caroline Sanderson<\/p>\n

A maritime tang permeates the story, from the lavish lobster banquet the Van Meters throw for the wedding principals two days before the wedding to the sperm whale which perishes on a nearby beach. Its sad demise particularly distresses marine biologist Livia, the younger of the Van Meter\u2019s two daughters, whose love life has been similarly washed up since her dumping, devastated and pregnant, by the son of another establishment island family. Her subsequent abortion has left her feeling keelhauled in the face of her sister\u2019s contented fecundity, particularly when she keeps being told that there are \u2018other fish in the sea\u2019.[…] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}