Set during three days, Seating Arrangements is the debut novel by Maggie Shipstead. The story takes place in the Weskeke island where the elder daughter of the Van Meter family is getting married. The story travels back and forth, reminiscing over the days went by. Everyone has gathered together to drink and enjoy the weekend as the two young people get married. Simmering beneath the glow of the wedding and the cocktails, are the frustrating memories and desires of the unfulfilled souls.

The ambiance that is created is not just of a wedding on an island, but there are histories, bloodlines, unsettling old stories, and dramas surrounding the people. It is a sharply written satirical prose. It has won the 2012 Dylan Thomas Prize, for its success in explaining what lies beneath the perfect charm of a family that portrays themselves to be perfect in the society.

The book mainly focuses on the psychological portrait of the family’s head, Winn Van Meter. As the father of the bride, his eldest daughter Daphne, Winn feels alone in the house mainly occupied by the womenfolk in his life. The girls – Daphne and Livia, Biddy, the bridesmaids and his sister in law are all set to take the fort with their manicures, makeups and other bridal arrangements. Being the perfect husband and father, Winn agrees to cook an elegant dinner of lobsters for both the families as a precursor to the rehearsal dinner.

Behind the scenes of this perfect husband and father, Winn struggles with an inside turmoil of having sexual feelings towards one of the bridesmaids, Agatha. He becomes entangled in a messy flirtation and sexual arousals with this young bridesmaid and finds himself in a very unsettling position.

His relationship with his younger daughter, Livia, is also a key focus of the story. Livia has her own feelings suppressed which in the emotional hum-drums around her, explodes at times. Recently broken up with her boyfriend, Teddy, Livia just cannot let him go. She was also pregnant with his child, which she later got an abortion done. All throughout the wedding, she is looking for a rebound. She becomes entranced by the groom’s elder brother, Sterling only to find him sleeping with Agatha. Livia rages around with hurt and anger, which is often seen taken out on Winn.

Winn always wanted to have a son but gifted with two daughters, his hopes of continuing the family lineage and dreams stopped there. Shipstead beautifully shows the bond that keeps them farther away but also somehow binds them together as a family at the end. Winn sometimes wishes he knew his wife and daughters and see the world through their eyes but finds himself failing at it. He hopes to bond with them but does not know how to.

There is Biddy, the ideal wife a man could wish for. Winn and Biddy have a safe and successful marriage. They met at his father’s funeral and decided to marry within a year. Biddy knows the misdoings of Winn’s life and chooses to look past it. She is a character portrayed as someone calm and polite on the outside. There are glimpses of the turmoil that goes inside of her. She tolerates her husband’s hidden affairs and the way he looks at the young bridesmaid, Agatha all throughout the weekend.

Another turmoil that is eating up Winn during the wedding weekend is the membership at Pequod Golf Club. He feels entitled to the membership as he is a part of some other well-known clubs. It’s been three years in the waiting list, and he still has not been invited to join in. He assumes that the reason he has still not been invited to this exclusive island club is because of his long-time nemesis Jack Fenn.

Jack Fenn and Winn Van Meter go back a long time. They have known each other since their college days. Jack is married to Fee, who used to date Winn in college and whose heart Winn had broken nonetheless. Jack’s son Teddy dated Winn’s younger daughter, Livia and had got her impregnated and then broken up with her. Winn had forbidden Jack’s entry to the famous Harvard club, the Ophidian and this Winn assumes that Jack is now returning the favor.

As the wedding approaches, Maggie Shipstead with her comically prosed writing showcases the truth behind the perfect ambiance and the hidden fees of the Van Meters. It shows the internal emotional shifts in the characters. In the end, Winn gives a brutally honest toast on weddings, marriage, and love.

He also says certain things on the foundations of love and marriage and on which the relationship between two people stands on. “People spent their lives searching for something beyond the simple friction of skin on skin, but there was nothing. The void between two people could never be closed, and in trying to close it, they would only learn everything that was to be despised in the other.”

Author Maggie Shipstead has written a fantastic comedy filled with satirical prose and has mocked the pretentious world of the rich and the perfect. Her narrative is straightforward, and the dialogues are subtle and direct. This book is an ideal summer beach read or if you find yourself stuck at an island wedding.