When I worked as a journalist in my twenties at Washingtonian magazine, the city mag in DC, my editor in chief and two of the senior editors on staff took me to lunch. We went to a serious grill near 19th and L Streets, where the offices were located then, and after ordering steaks and making small talk, my editor got to the point. He said that lots of people could write, but the reason they valued me as a writer wasn’t because I could string sentences together, although that was important. It was because I had the ability to empathize with all different types of people, to feel emotions across the spectrum, to treat everyone I interviewed with an open mind and work to see all sides.
At this point, my white haired elder boss leaned across the table, his blue eyes shining with kindness: “I hope as you get older and grow in your career, you never lose that sense of empathy. Your empathy will push you ahead of other writers.”
In retrospect, as a woman journalist, I could have taken offense.
I suppose I should have gritted my teeth and demanded that he tell me I stood out for my superior intellect or my ability to report a solid story, how adept I was at getting sources to open up to me. But I knew exactly what he meant. No matter who I interviewed, a washed-up basketball player or a Senator on the Hill, I could write a story that helped readers understand who my subjects really were. Ultimately, it’s why I started to write fiction.
Novelists need to empathize with all of their characters in order to draw them well.
Which leads me to the second book in my Summer Book Club: Beatriz Williams’s The Beach at Summerly. Williams shares the same ability to empathize deeply, and she’s particularly adept at helping readers get into the heads of her characters. No matter how troubling their actions, Williams is an expert at guiding the reader to a deeper understanding of who they are.
When I read Williams’s second novel A Hundred Summers back in 2014, I absolutely fell in love with the young women characters whose families find themselves victims of a stock market crash. That novel showed that stories set in the past didn’t have to take place in World War II-Europe to be worthwhile, although as my recent favorite The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry proves, that genre has much more territory to mine. But it was Williams who introduced me (and many others) to the historical beach read. I’ve devoured many of her novels since — she’s written over fifteen — including last summer’s NYT bestseller The Lost Summers of Newport, which she wrote with fellow authors Lauren Willig and Karen White. (I truly loved this one!)
I was immediately sucked into The Beach at Summerly as well for a few reasons: I loved the novel’s plucky heroine Emilia Winthrop, a local girl on a summer island, whose nickname is “Cricket.” She’s a classic charmer of a character who is earnest and hardworking, authentic and kind, even if the summer we meet her, she’s riddled with challenges.
The novel is particularly seductive since it takes place on an island loosely inspired by Fisher’s Island off Orient Point in eastern Long Island, the same setting as Williams’ novel Summer Wives. Most of all, I adored the Sabrina-like setup of the story: main character Emilia comes from a family who cares for the illustrious Peabodys, a wealthy, highly respected summer family whose younger sons have been Emilia’s childhood friends for as long as she can remember. In 1946, one of the two dual timelines in the book, the Peabody boys return home from war in Europe as changed men, including Shep, who left pudgy and returned looking like what his brother refers to as a “deb’s dream.” Chuckle.
Emilia’s relationships with the handsome sons pick up where they left off five years before. She falls in love with one, realizes she’s been in love with him since girlhood, and puppy love ensues, even as a tale of Cold War espionage is unfolding in the background. (This exciting turn keeps you turning pages as spies descend on quiet Whitby Island.)
Still, Williams’ works her magic as we learn more about the people on island.
We empathize with Emilia because her mother had a stroke and she’s stuck taking care of her. Her dreams of leaving the island and going to college have been dashed. Her father is getting up to no good with another woman. And Emilia feels as though she’s an outsider on the island when the summer people descend. Still, the grown Peabody children treat the help’s daughters, including Emilia, as if money doesn’t mean a thing, even if their parents draw class lines. When one of the sons invites Emilia over for his welcome home party, he doesn’t realize his mother puts her to work helping out in the kitchen, which makes Emilia weep.
The last reason I loved this book is Williams’ writing. She portrays her characters with an intimacy that few writers can pull off. She also gives you plenty of reasons to root for even the most despicable characters, which is the exact opposite of last week’s book selection The Guest by Emma Cline. There are so many moments that she builds a telling scene simply by showing us the details of what’s happening between two characters. My absolute favorite passage is the one I included below. I even read it aloud to my 13-year-old son as an example of how he doesn’t need to compete so hard with his 8-year-old sister. (I’m not sure he got my point, but still, I had to try.)
“I launched my bicycle forward and together we tore along Serenity Lane and swerved down the drive toward the old Winthrop house, just like when we were kids. Back then was always a draw, a perfect match between my nimble limbs and natural endurance versus Shep’s boy muscle. Now his legs churned like a pair of enormous pistons, and I knew he could have shot ahead of me and won by open yards, if he wanted. But he didn’t. Side by side we raced down the gravel drive, a perfect match. We flashed past the rhododendron bush at exactly the same split second, me panting hard and Shep hardly panting. He set his foot on the gravel and grinned. Told me I still had it. I told him he was full of baloney.” —page 146, The Beach at Summerly.
Isn’t this passage incredibly effective? It shows us everything we need to know about this young man and woman feel about each other without ever telling us.
Ultimately, I highly recommend this novel, and if you haven’t read Williams’s other books, you could start with one of those, too. Actually, I know so many of my readers on Dear Fiction must have read at least one Beatriz Williams’ novel. Leave a note in comments and let me know which one. Also, did you read along with me? Please tell me what you thought of The Beach at Summerly. I’m so curious if everyone loved this one as much as me.
I think that's such a wonderful compliment that your boss and editor gave you. Personally, if I have to choose, I'd also rather have the ability to write with empathy than with intellect. It always hits differently when the words connect with the heart, rather than with the brain <3
Thank you for picking this book. I admired Cline as a writer last week, but was frustrated with the story. I wanted to know what made Alex tick. But I adored this book. The writing, setting, and characters drew me in.