Customer Reviews

A Day at the Beach: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Other reviewers rated this so highly, and it is so short that I decided to invest the time. Alas, a waste. This is essentially a short story padded out to be a novella. The padding is the two main characters internal boring dialogue about their lives and shaky marrage. Very little happens. Though it is a 911 story, the plot has little to do with the events of that day. I would say though that the pages depicting the chaos and terror of that day are quite compelling-the best part of the book. The husband is arrogant and self-absorbed. the wife is equally self-aborbed and narcistic. Even tho it's short, I wouldn't recommend spending 200+ pages with these annoying characters.

While 9/11 is used as a jumping-off point and as a backdrop to this novel, it's about so much more. The poignancy of coping with an autistic child is detailed beautifully, as is a mother's (sometimes obsessional) love for her child, while the father stands (willingly)on the sidelines. The characters are richly detailed and the dialogue propels the story forward. I wanted the book to continue, so I could follow these people and see what happened next! But I think the reader is left with a pretty good idea, based on this unbelievably significant and traumtic day in their lives.

Helen Schulman, what an amazing writer. She captures the event of one day, the complicated psychic of 2 married people and a mystery of human brain. This book got incredible effect on me. Complete involment and understanding. It seems to me that I was together with Susanne and Gerhard for 24 hours of their lives.

The characters in this book are well developed. The husband is much more interesting that the wife. She is whiny and seems to have no interests of her own, nor to realize that her husband cheats on her constantly. The section about the actual moments when the Twin Towers are hit are compelling and scary. I felt shaken again reading them.

However, although much of the writing is excellent, much also is sloppy with dangling participles and other syntactical errors. You'd think in such a short book the author could do better.

The end of the book is totally disappointing.

We will all remember where we were on 9/11 -- I have friends in NYC who watched it happen and I cannot conceive of how I would have reacted. This novel is well told, well written -- and definitely worth the time.