Trophy House by Anne Bernays – 4/20 Books of Summer

Dannie Faber has a comfortable life as a children’s book illustrator; her children are adults and she splits her time between affluent Belmont, MA and Cape Cod, which she prefers. Her husband Tom teaches at MIT and joins her at the Cape, which is her happy place, when he can. When she isn’t working, she has local friends, including Raymie, with whom to gossip about neighbors who don’t fit in. Primary among these is a millionaire who is building an enormous, hideous house less than half a mile from the Fabers.

Dannie seems less interested in her husband and children than in the lingering sadness of 9/11. The book begins exactly a year later and makes the book feel very dated but perhaps Bernays began the book closer to the attacks:

The one thing neither of us went anywhere near was that one year ago to the day the Twin Towers had been destroyed in the blink of an eye, sending most of us into a paroxysm of rage and fear and dreams of revenge (sometimes followed by an unexpected sense of guilt; what had we done to make them hate us so much?). I would have mentioned it if I’d had the right words.

The Trophy House is ostensibly a catalyst for major change for Dannie. She has no interest in getting to know Mitchell Brenner but when he has an accident, his young live-in girlfriend decamps and Raymie (more or less uninvited) moves in, abandoning the more difficult life running a B&B in Provincetown. Dannie is puzzled that her friend wants to be the girlfriend of this tacky guy but she has problems of her own. Her daughter Beth has moved back home, after a bad breakup, and it is obvious to the reader that Tom feels neglected and is having an affair with a colleague (only their unambitious son seems happy).

Stung that her own self-absorption has resulted in her orderly life falling apart while Tom, Beth and Raymie are all moving on, Dannie tries to escape by going to New York to meet with her editor. David is younger, divorced, and unexpectedly flirtatious – on her second visit, she brings him back to her hotel room and, surprisingly, he is interested in a long-term relationship once Dannie and Tom agree to separate and divorce. Dannie tries to make this work for a while but it is pretty clear she doesn’t want to live in New York, so she suggests a set up where David comes to the Cape when he is free and she would come to New York for occasional weekends (I suspected this would create the same disconnected situation as with Tom, and David will meet someone else but Dannie says this is a risk she is willing to take).

Just when one is finally admiring an unlikable character for at least knowing what she wants and sticking to it, in a final, if you can’t beat them, join them moment, Raymie tells Dannie she and Mitch are turning part of the Trophy House into a luxury B&B and persuades her to decorate three of the bedrooms to create a Cape aesthetic and take photographs for a glossy brochure. Is the author trying to say that it’s futile to prevent insensitive rich people from pushing their way onto the Cape with McMansions (true) or that Mitch isn’t so bad (he does not seem to have any redeeming characteristics except tolerating Raymie, who is now dressing very preppy)? Dannie’s daughter accuses her of selling out but then decides to start a wedding planning business focusing on Provincetown’s gay couples, another sign that the Cape is changing. The loss of Raymie as the sort of down-to-earth soulmate friend struck me as sad, but you could argue she is still Dannie’s friend, just has different priorities and deserves to be happy in her own (living off millionaire) way. I suppose the overall message is resilience and when my book group discusses this on Tuesday night, I will see what others thought.  It will be interesting to hear whether they identify with Dannie or, like me, are impatient with her.

This was the fourth of my 20 Books of Summer. Bernays is a local author and still lives in Cambridge; her father was an early proponent of public relations and (more interesting) was a nephew of Sigmund Freud. Her late husband, Justin Kaplan, was a noted writer of nonfiction. My mother gave me a copy of Bernays’ first novel, Growing Up Rich, for Christmas when I was a teen. I remember a character in the book always called her doctor’s office before she left for an appointment to find out if he/she was on schedule: every time I’ve had to wait for more than half an hour I remember this and wonder if it is rude or practical!

Title: Anne Bernays
Author: Trophy House
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2005
Genre: Fiction
Source: Library