The family of Winn Van Meter on the surface is preppy perfection. As family and friends convene at the Van Meter Summer Home for the wedding of his eldest daughter, Winn Van Meter confronts infidelity, his daughters' dramas and his own desperate socially climbing with pathetic hilarity. By the end of the novel, the man seems less like a powerful patriarch and more like a laughable idiot proving that money can not buy you dignity.
"Reading this was like watching a train leave the station, slowly pick up speed, then go hurling 200 mph towards a brick wall, only to run out of steam before impact. New England blue-blood society types ("they went together like matching shades of beige"), scrap and slime and feign their way through the few days before they must all face each other as part of a wedding party. Impending disaster - what could be more fun? Even though the end was a whimper, I must confess I got a perverse pleasure seeing these fabulously wealthy, privileged people so anxiously unhappy."
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