Dark Beach Reads

You've heard of Dark Academia...

Something sinister lurks behind this beautiful facade. One of these people is going to die, be abducted by aliens, or be manipulated by a dear friend.

First, thank you for such a warm response to the first issue of my newsletter. I heard from many of you! The White Negroni was challenged by a Classic Mojito (also a good summer choice!) and another reader reminisced about enjoying one on a beach in Ibiza. (LEVEL UP, PEOPLE!) After a recommendation, I listened to The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, of which cult leader, Mel Lymon was a member. This is some wild music— and very much a summer sound. But also heard a suggestion that the song of the summer is “a steel cage match between “Steal My Sunshine” by Len and “How Bizarre” by OMC.” I’ll let you be the judge. Finally, I also got a new recommendation for a good cult docu-series to watch (“Shiny Happy People”) as well as learned that The White Negroni’s key ingredient, Suze, is unavailable in New Hampshire. When I asked Chat GPT for a substitute, it recommended Salers or Cocchi Americano. Additionally, a reader alerted me that the lines of customers waiting to get into West Village restaurant, Via Carota, to taste their White Negroni might be happy to know they bottle their own, available to purchase. Give it a shake and see if it suffices.

This week I’m focusing on summer reading. Summer vacation is here and I sincerely hope you have a plan for visiting paradise at some point this summer. For me, a beach vacation is pointless without a stack of heavy hardcovers to go with it. And there is nothing like lazing in the sand reading about a character also on vacation…especially when they are fearing for their lives! I don’t know why but the more idyllic a location, the more I like to imagine the horrors lurking behind the facade. The more frightened a character becomes, the more I can fully relax. [Maybe it’s childhood trauma, or maybe she’s born with it!] You can keep your Elin Hildenbrand Nantucket nookie books to yourself, I want beaches full of unexpected mystery, unsettling friendships, unlikable characters, and uninhabitable crumbling mansions. Here are five of my favorites. What are some others? Let’s compile a new genre!

“More than ever, this place seemed like a collection of houses, everywhere she looked, or more like a collection of gates. A good trick, when you thought about it. How everything was private, everything was hidden. The better to keep you out if you didn’t belong.” — Emma Cline, “The Guest.”

THE GUEST by Emma Cline

If you love unlikeable characters who make cringeworthy decisions every step of the way toward a tenuous goal, a plot that snowballs with tension and then ends abruptly without any explained conclusion, then this is for you. Seriously, this one is a banger! A girl hides out in the Hamptons with her sugar daddy after ripping off a drug dealer, but when she’s thrown out of his house, she chooses to stick around and float from house to house, lying and scheming her way into surviving in a place where outsiders aren’t easily let in. Not since John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” has an author so smoothly portrayed a place through the luxurious dips in bodies of water. I was a huge fan of Cline’s earlier novel, The Girls, and this has a similar bite even if it leaves the reader with a different aftertaste.

“Time, like the sea, unties all knots.” -Iris Murdoch, “The Sea, The Sea.”

THE SEA, THE SEA by Iris Murdoch

A London playwright takes a break from the limelight and moves to a house “on the edge of the North Sea in an isolated coastal town” to write his memoirs. There he encounters a past flame, the love of his life, who, although now an old washed-up townie still becomes the object of his obsession. The narrator, Charles Arrowby, aims to rescue his past love from the stodgy life she’d fallen into, even as she wishes he wouldn’t. The vacation home is visited by a stream of strange characters, some real, some spectral, all mesmerizing. It’s a tale of manipulation, hubris, and strange dramatics which led the book to receive the 1978 Booker Prize. That means prestige!

“To enjoyment. To the enjoyment of vacations. To the enjoyment of any moment in life, I guess. Enjoying a moment is a victory. I think we need to hold on to those.” —Rumaan Alam, “Leave the World Behind.”

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND by Rumaan Alam

A family rents an Airbnb in the Hamptons, but soon after their arrival, a blackout overtakes much of the world, the internet evaporates and a disaster has surely struck. Unlike other apocalyptic novels, Alam doesn’t ever tell the reader what exactly has happened. Instead, the novel focuses on how the homeowners show up to reclaim their space and the claustrophobia which ensues. Together the two families share unease, not knowing what’s to come, and living in a permanent state of stress. Informed, if not inspired, by the pandemic, the book focuses on the tiny domestic ways we keep calm and carry on during crises: baking, swimming, and drinking. The characters are trapped on vacation, tackling themes of race, class, and isolation, forever in paradise.

“Why should Dickie want to come back to subways and taxis and starched collars and a nine-to-five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in Florida and Maine? It wasn't as much fun as sailing a boat in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way.” — Patricia Highsmith, “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith

A few summers ago, I read the entire Talented Mr. Ripley series— five in total. After each, I watched the corresponding movie. If you are looking for a worthwhile summer project, let me suggest this activity, as Patricia Highsmith is one of the best psychological thriller writers of all time. Plus, she knows how to describe the most jaw-dropping scenes of millionaires on vacation. When a con man’s acquaintance's rich father buys him a ticket to the fictional Italian town of Mongibello to find his gallivanting son, the story zooms ahead into a nail-biter. Imposter syndrome, manipulation, mistaken identity, love triangles, and murder! If you are only familiar with the Jude Law/ Gwyneth Paltrow/ Matt Damon vehicle, do yourself a favor and pick up this 1955 classic.

“Tourists went on holidays while travelers did something else. They traveled.” —Alex Garland, “The Beach.”

THE BEACH by Alex Garland

Honestly, I don’t remember much about this book except that I was CUCKOO for it when I read it in 1995. A secret beach in Thailand, a treasure map, cannabis farmers, danger, deceit, and disillusion! What else do you need to know? It’s a fast-paced page-turner that you will tear through while forcing yourself to remember Garland was only 26 when it was published. Now I’m actually talking myself into rereading this book. The idea of an untouched stretch of land in the age of travel influencers trampling every inch of the globe is quaint and impossible. But this book asks what personal paradise is worth, what one will go through to get there, and who has the right to enjoy it.

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