"The Lost Summers of Newport," a Novel

                                                                   Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

The Lost Summers of Newport

Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White

June 4, 2022

 

“Like Sprague Hall itself, you never knew

what kind of rot lay behind the façade.”

                                                                                                                The Lost Summers of Newport

 

Like a Nova, Newport, with its enormous, newly-built mansions, exploded onto the social scene during the late 19^th Century; then that Gilded Age faded away in a matter of two or three generations.

 

This is the fourth novel written by three friends who, independently, are all New York Times best-selling authors. (A caveat – Beatriz is married to my oldest son.) As in their previous novels, this story unfolds over three time periods, in this case at Sprague Hall – 1899, 1957 and 2019 – on Newport’s Bellevue Avenue. While one of Newport’s “mansions,” Sprague Hall is not as imposing as its neighbors: It is “…tucked between Marble House and Rosecliff…a less significant house perched near a small curve of coast with the improbable name of Sheep Point Cove.”

 

This story of Newport’s extravagances and secrets is told through the voices of three young women, representing the three time periods: 1899 – Ellen (“…hoping the tremble in her voice would be taken for awe, and not fear.”) has been hired to give singing lessons to Maybelle Sprague. 1957 – Lucky (“Teddy was the only person in Newport who knew what Lucky really thought of Minty Appleton.”) is the Italian-born granddaughter of the American-born Princess di Conti. 2019 – Andie (“…it was clear I had traveled more than just the thirty-three miles separating my hometown of Cranston, Rhode Island from the coastal resort of Newport.”) is a young, producer on Makeover Mansions, a reality TV show about restoring some of America’s most lavish houses.

 

While chronology is important and the reader must keep track of multiple characters and generations, it is through Andie – her persistence with the remaining members of the Sprague family – that the mysteries of the house and its occupants (past and present) are unraveled. With chapters alternating between the three time periods, we begin to understand the family tensions and sense the secrets that underlie them. 

 

The stories of the three women blend as the reader proceeds, at an ever-quickening pace. Like the orchestral piece, Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, the novel builds toward a crescendo. This reader found his pulse quickening and his eyes moving ever faster down the page, as the story reached its climax, which was both surprising and satisfying.

 

The second season of Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age has been filming in Newport, making The Lost Summers of Newport timely. Incidentally, this novel will show up as number 15 on the June 5^th (tomorrow) New York Timesbest-selling list, possibly the first time that a novel authored by three women has made that list.