TENDERNESS

In the 1970s, a wedding weekend on a small Virginia island is filled with tension.

In her sophomore novel, Beaird combines a rich boy/poor girl marriage plot with a historical fiction–type depiction of Synanon, a drug rehab program turned cult that employed methods known as “attack therapy.” It’s an uneasy merger. The wedding is being held on a small island where the groom’s wealthy family, the Pruitts, is uniformly disliked by the locals who serve them. Andrew Pruitt’s fiancée, Shay O’Connor, has received a warmer reception—but though she is one of three point-of-view characters, the reader can really only assume it’s because she’s not a rich snob. She remains a cipher; chapters detailing her Synanon experiences feel tacked on and the notion that unsavory characters from the group have been sent to the island to disrupt the wedding, possibly with violence, never gains credibility. The other two narrative perspectives belong to her brother, William, and her college classmate Joel; readers may find themselves repeatedly having to recall which is which. Brother William starts the action by going to pick up his Aunt Eleanor, who is supposed to travel to the wedding with him but is dead in her reading chair when he arrives at her apartment. He makes the strange decision to conceal her death from his mother and Shay; an envelope addressed to Shay, which he finds on the kitchen table, remains undelivered until the end of the book, and what the contents are supposed to mean are as confusing as another key aspect of the ending. This second late-breaking question mark is in the plotline revolving around Joel. Poor Joel is dumped midweekend by his wedding date when she realizes he is, and has always been, in love with Shay. Shay’s handling of both her two-man complications and her Synanon pursuers provides multiple surprising, high-drama plot points. Does her somewhat wimpy exterior conceal the soul of a ruthless antiheroine? The answer is a definite maybe.

Strong ingredients, but as with the dessert at the elegant rehearsal dinner, something is off.