Published: 2012
Author: Liza Klaussmann
Evocative setting but no connection with the characters
This summer’s Richard & Judy Bookclub picks have been announced and as usual there’s a mixture of romance, crime and literary fiction. The books that the duo select are normally designed in some way to tug at the emotions and these titles look as though they are continuing in the tradition. I normally get round to reading one or two of the books from each selection. It’s never deliberate and I don’t rush out to buy the books but I normally end up enjoying them. For once though I’m ahead of the game and when the titles were announced last week I was already three quarters of the way through the first book on the list – Tigers in Red Weather
Written by Liza Klaussmann, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Moby Dick author Herman Melville, this is the story of cousins Nick and Helena and their summers at the Tiger House in Martha’s Vineyard. The idyllic vacations of their childhood are replaced by more unhappy events as they get older and have children of their own. Family tensions are raised and secrets come to the fore when Nick and Helena’s children discover a murdered girl one summer. The story is told in five sections, each one representing a different character and covering a span of twenty years from London during the Second World War to Massachusetts in the late 60s.
I struggled slightly with this book, I enjoyed it and appreciated the evocative writing but didn’t connect with any of the characters. I’m not a huge fan of novels where the timeframe constantly jumps back and forth but it worked relatively well here. No one section tells the full story and each perspective is required to give a fully rounded and satisfactory narrative. It works well in supporting secretive atmosphere that the characters are living in. Klaussmann creates a hot and steamy atmosphere, claustrophobic and stifling for the characters and the readers.
Despite the publicity calling the summers that Nick and Helena spend together “idyllic” I found their experiences to be the complete opposite. Nick’s marriage never seems to be quite what she or her husband Avery want and Helena is trapped in an abusive marriage to a man obsessed with a dead woman. I’m unsure how any summer which includes teenage children discovering a dead body could be described as idyllic, even if the tennis tournaments and gin and tonic parties continue uninterrupted. Perhaps a more accurate description would be of summers which are idyllic on the surface but dangerous and troubled underneath.
The major problem with Tigers in Red Weather was the inability to connect with any of the characters. This was partly a result of the narrative shifting from one character to another, but more importantly it is due to none of the characters being particularly likeable. Each, with the possible exception of Nick’s daughter Daisy, is flawed to such an extent that it’s hard to care terribly much about what happens to them. Even when the characters experience events which should provoke sympathy there’s still too much detachment to care very much.
Tigers in Red Weather is beautifully written and for someone looking for an atmospheric read by the poolside this is ideal, but the characters are too thin and unlikeable for the book to be truly great.