Review: A moving snapshot of a time and a place that exists no more
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 1, 2012
This is a short book by a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright which has been published as a Kindle Single.  It spans the years from the early 1930s until shortly after WW2 and tells the story of a community in New Jersey. There is a social divide between the upscale restricted community summer people and the year-round working-class residents. This work of fiction is a snapshot of the time and the place told by the use of short first-person vignettes from a the point of view of a wide variety of people.  There are the snobby ladies of the poetry club, the various alcoholics, the shopkeepers and the handymen, the youthful swimming champions and all of those people in budding and/or broken romances.  Especially interesting are the class differences.  Then WW2 rears its ugly head and everything changes as the young men go to war.This is a fine read and I loved every minute of it.  It is amazing how through these short vignettes the author paints a picture of a world that exists no more, but which flourished for a while and whose shadow still lingers in memory.