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A Day at the Beach [Hardcover]

Helen Schulman (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Book Description

June 1, 2007
The marriage of Gerhard and Suzannah Falktopf is already in trouble when tragedy strikes on the morning of September 11, 2001. As a quintessential downtown art couple -- he a famous choreographer, she his muse and principal dancer and now the mother of their four-year-old son -- the strains in their marriage have been kept at bay by the glamorous velocity of their lives. 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 buried selves, and their sharp differences, to rise to the surface. After packing up the car, and with their gorgeous young 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. It is a story that speaks to our memories of that day, which, for all of us in so many different ways, meant the end of a world and the birth of something new. Or so it seemed . . .

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Editorial Reviews

From 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

On September 11, 2001, the fifty-five-year-old German choreographer Gerhard Falktopf is doing the same thing he’s been doing for weeks—pacing about his Village loft and ranting about the loss of his dance company—while his former muse, Suzannah, frets about their son Nikolai’s first day at school. But when Nikolai looks out the window and observes that "the birdies are on fire," Gerhard shakes off his sense of paralysis, plunders his bank account, and loads assorted dependents into the company’s Mercedes S.U.V., bound for the Hamptons. As it turns out, his family would have been safer if they’d stayed home. Schulman, in her fourth novel, gets both her cultural moment and the psychological particulars of a disintegrating marriage exactly right, and her writing is distractingly, almost brazenly beautiful. The result slyly demonstrates both the inadequacy of art and its insolent resilience in disaster’s aftermath.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (June 1, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0618746544
  • ISBN-13: 978-0618746545
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #782,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Personal Take on a Monumental Tragedy, September 28, 2007
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Paul Byrne (Melbourne Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Day at the Beach (Hardcover)
Schulman's novel portrays the relationship between a choreographer and his wife and how September 11 impacts on their lives and the life of their child. Living near the World Trade Center, our main protagonits are forced to flee the city after the planes fly into the buildings. It is a brilliantly written novel and in its short length manages to convey a whole world of grief and horror in writing that is muscular, compelling and compassionate. One of the main strengths of this book is the different perspectives of these horrific events through the main characters' eyes, Gerhard and Suzannah. As readers we vacillate between them, sometimes identifying with Gerhard and frustrated with his ex-dancer wife Suzannah. Then there are other times when we are furious with Gerhard's teutonic arrogance, understanding full well Suzannah's impatience with him. Another strength of Schulman's writing is the way she holds back divulging why certain characters behave the way they do till much later. In doing this, Schulman forces us to reassess our judgements of these people and we as readers are all the better for this. It is a superb book. I urge you to read it.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written and nuanced book, July 18, 2007
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This review is from: A Day at the Beach (Hardcover)

I came to A DAY AT THE BEACH with all sorts of preconceptions of what a `9/11 Book' should or could be, and Helen Schulmen shattered all of them. From the very beginning, the relationship between Suzanna (an ex-dancer) and Gerhard (her choreographer) is electric. Although the larger tragedy of 9/11 is present, it takes the backseat to the rich, fully realized lives of the characters. I would highly recommend this book for book groups, as it opens the door to discussions about the devastating effects of historical tragedies in the lives of individuals.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down, December 19, 2007
This review is from: A Day at the Beach (Hardcover)
I savored this book as I read it, and knew even before I reached the end that I'd start over as soon as I finished. Which is what I did. Beautifully written and engaging.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Gerhard Falktopf, New York, Jeff Greenfield, South Tower, Thank God, Agnes Martin, East Hampton, Bin Laden, Pet Sounds, North Tower, Twin Towers, Good Vibrations, Long Island, Brian Wilson, Katie Couric, Diet Coke, Matt Lauer, Aaron Brown, World Trade Center, New Jersey, Elspeth's Beach
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