Overview
The marriage of Gerhard and Suzannah Falktopf is already in trouble when tragedy strikes on the morning of September 11, 2001. Though they escape harm when the planes crash into the towers, husband and wife are suddenly cast into an unpredictable psychological space that allows their repressed selves, and their sharp differences, to rise to the surface. With their young son and nanny in tow, they head for the safety of the Hamptons. But despite their soft landing in this cocoon of privilege, the unleashed demons will push them to their psychic limits—so much so that by the next morning they will hardly recognize each other.
Taking place over a manic twenty-four hours, A Day at the Beach is a fast-paced, razor-sharp story whose personal tragedy contains sparks of dark humor about American life pre- and post-9/11. Helen Schulman has crafted a powerful portrait of a marriage in crisis, framed by one of the darkest events in our country’s history.
Synopsis
The marriage of Gerhard and Suzannah Falktopf is already in trouble when tragedy strikes on the morning of September 11, 2001. Though they escape harm when the planes crash into the towers, husband and wife are suddenly cast into an unpredictable psychological space that allows their repressed selves, and their sharp differences, to rise to the surface. With their young son and nanny in tow, they head for the safety of the Hamptons. But despite their soft landing in this cocoon of privilege, the unleashed demons will push them to their psychic limits—so much so that by the next morning they will hardly recognize each other.
Taking place over a manic twenty-four hours, A Day at the Beach is a fast-paced, razor-sharp story whose personal tragedy contains sparks of dark humor about American life pre- and post-9/11. Helen Schulman has crafted a powerful portrait of a marriage in crisis, framed by one of the darkest events in our country’s history.
The Washington Post - Carolyn See
… A Day at the Beach tackles its own concerns -- the conspiracy between the oppressor and the oppressed, as well as the actual efficacy of art -- with skill and intelligence. It's a novel of ideas, in the very best sense.
Editorials
Carolyn See
… A Day at the Beach tackles its own concerns -- the conspiracy between the oppressor and the oppressed, as well as the actual efficacy of art -- with skill and intelligence. It's a novel of ideas, in the very best sense.— The Washington Post
Sarah Towers
Nearly 3,000 people died on Sept. 11. Schulman’s triumph here is that she breaks our hearts with three who lived.— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Schulman (P.S.; The Revisionist) doesn't disappoint with this narrative spanning 24 terrible hours in the life of the Falktopf family on a certain September day. Husband and wife Gerhard and Suzannah, somewhat mismatched, struggle to come to terms with each other, the turns their lives have begun to take and their artsy downtown Manhattan existence. Suzannah is a 36-year-old former dancer turned stay-at-home mother of autistic son Nikolai, while choreographer Gerhard is autodidactic, worldly, anal retentive and unaffectionate, and has just been notified by his dance company's board that he is to be replaced by someone "committed to the spirit of the early Gerhard Falktopf" and that the company is trying to usurp his works, including his crowning achievement, yet-to-be-premiered A Day at the Beach. The Falktopfs watch (separately: Suzannah from their apartment, Gerhard from a nearby bank) in horror as the towers burn and collapse before fleeing to East Hampton. There, Gerhard and Suzannah navigate their troubled marriage and a few moral predicaments brought on by chance meetings with long-lost friends. Schulman's novel succeeds as a haunting, poignant remembrance. (June)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
The events of 9/11 are at the center of this engrossing novel, which takes place in the course of 24 hours. Choreographer Gerhard Falktopf and his wife, Suzannah, his former principal ballerina, begin the morning of 9/11 in their loft apartment in New York. As Suzannah makes breakfast and tends to their four-year-old son, Nickolai, Gerhard fumes on the phone to his lawyer, who happens to be breakfasting at Windows on the World, about losing his dance company. When the planes hit the towers, Gerhard responds by packing up his family and driving to the Hamptons to hole up in a friend's beach house, where the rest of the novel plays out. Schulman's (P.S.) expertise lies in not letting the tragic events overshadow the story of the Falktopfs; the narrative is as much about ballet, relationships, New York lifestyle, ethnicity, and child rearing as it is about a well-known catastrophe. Schulman juxtaposes the horror of 9/11 with the small details of everyday life, thereby giving this story a depth and realism that disturbingly recalls the events of the day while also transforming them into art. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.
—Joy Humphrey