Tigers in Red Weather

Summary (from the publisher): Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sunbleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha's Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. In the days following the end of the Second World War, the world seems to offer itself up, and the two women are on the cusp of their 'real lives': Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own young husband, Hughes, about to return from the war. 
     
Soon the gilt begins to crack. Helena's husband is not the man he seemed to be, and Hughes has returned from the war distant, his inner light curtained over. On the brink of the 1960s, back at Tiger House, Nick and Helena--with their children, Daisy and Ed--try to recapture that sense of possibility. But when Daisy and Ed discover the victim of a brutal murder, the intrusion of violence causes everything to unravel. The members of the family spin out of their prescribed orbits, secrets come to light, and nothing about their lives will ever be the same.
   
 Brilliantly told from five points of view, with a magical elegance and suspenseful dark longing, Tigers in Red Weather is an unforgettable debut novel from a writer of extraordinary insight and accomplishment.

Review: "Darling," her mother took Daisy's face in her hands, "I want you to listen to me. I'm going to tell you this because someday it may be very important for you to remember." Her mother's face was serious, her big green eyes like snake skin. "If there's one thing you can be sure about in this life, it's that you won't always be kissing the right person."

I won this novel as a giveaway on Goodreads. 

Tigers in Red Weather is about a family's secrets and intrigues in the years following the second world war. The story is told in five points of view: Nick (the book never specified what Nick was short for and I wish it had), her cousin Helena, their respective children Daisy and Ed, and Nick's husband Hughes. The novel jumps around chronologically, and it was interesting to see the same events and scenes from multiple perspectives. Much of the novel takes place at the family's summer home, Tiger House, on Martha's Vineyard.

Novels about relationships and human interaction seem to fall into two broad categories - ones where connections are made, and people feel deeply in sync with others, and ones where everyone seems to live on their own island, unable to fully relate to anyone else. This novel falls in the second category. Underneath the glamour and leisure of the summer home Tiger House, is an eery quality of betrayal and secrets, unspoken grudges and irritations, all underscored by the body of the murdered maid that is discovered by Ed and Daisy as children.

Things I loved about this novel: the beautiful cover that is a vintage Vogue photograph, the author is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Herman Melville, the beautiful, lyrical quality to the writing, and the glamorous quality of the characters and setting. All of the main characters were fascinating and intriguing, but the only ones who seemed like good people or ones I could actually like are Hughes and his daughter Daisy. Nick is terribly self-absorbed and selfish, Helena is weak (and not to mention an alcoholic and prescription drug addict), and Ed is seriously, seriously disturbed. (Interestingly, Ed, who is the the most detached and distant from his family, and viewed warily by everyone, is the only section told in the first person.) This is a beautiful debut novel with a narrative voice and characters who captivate.

Stars: 4