The East End

The East End by Jason Allen is an upstairs-downstairs of the Hamptons, where everyone has a different style of misery.

The accidental death at the beginning puts the plot in motion, so overlook that the entire novel could have been avoided with a call to the family lawyer.  A man who quickly gets his hands on a million dollars in cash probably has one on retainer, or at least in his contacts list. And rich Manhattanites never go to jail for possession.

There is a heavy sense of unhappiness throughout this book, as characters made self-destructive choices. The author plays with invisible class markers here — whose depression sends them to an upscale psych ward and whose to the liquor store? Which teenagers get to be rebellious? The novel stops short of equalizing classes, never conflating problems of survival and of social positioning, but there’s a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness though all the characters.

I read this novel immediately after finishing Out East, a memoir about finding love and identity in the Hamptons party scene. I enjoyed Out East, and of course the Hive tribe isn’t quite at the Sheffield’s level (yet), but I felt like I connected more with the working-class Hamptons. For many years, I supplemented my regular work by taking waitressing shifts over holidays. I’ve worked summer Saturdays at beer tents, Christmas day at a Chinese takeout, covered for others taking the holiday weekend off, etc., so I appreciated the details of the underclass doing the invisible work of making A Weekend In The Hamptons happen.  

At times, the female dialogue feels slightly forced, particularly in conversations between Tiffany and Angelique, and Gina and Marianne.

The final scene is heavyhanded, forced and awkward, in a way that doesn’t do justice to the subtlety of the rest to the novel.  Just skip the heavyhanded Grand Canyon scene for a solid manners novel of the Hamptons.