And it's there where most, but not all, of the Miltons will fine-tune the WASP practice of shrouding tragedy and secrets in silence.īlake is an accomplished storyteller, braiding in a large cast of characters and colorful excursions to places like pre-World War II Germany and 1950s Greenwich Village. There, the Miltons and their descendants will 'summer' for decades to come. That moment warps the fate of the Milton family for generations, but in the immediate aftermath, Ogden makes a desperate gesture to lift Kitty out of depression: He buys a mansion on a tiny island in Maine. Kitty calls his name and Neddy falls out the open window. The rowdy older one, 5-year-old Neddy, has climbed onto the window seat, stood up, and is about to toss his teddy bear out onto the street 14 stories below. When Kitty looks in her mirror, she sees that her two sons have entered the room. She flings open a window in the master bedroom (remember, this the pre-air conditioning era) and proceeds to freshen up. One afternoon, Kitty enters her family's hushed Upper East Side apartment after a pleasant interlude at the Philharmonic.

Kitty Milton and her husband, Ogden, are insulated from the anxieties of the Great Depression by a rock-solid fortification of old money. The year is 1935 the place is New York City. The Guest Book opens with a domestic shocker. Sarah Blake writes in the historical fiction tradition of someone like Herman Wouk: In her 2009 bestseller, The Postmistress, and her latest doorstopper, The Guest Book, multi-family dramas intersect with the larger forces of war and social upheaval. As a preseason teaser, I'm recommending two new and very different novels that tell stories readers can get lost in. Save the experimental fiction for fall - summertime reading is all about storytelling. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Guest Book Author Sarah Blake

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