SAVE WHAT'S LEFT

Long Island beach house update: Still ruining lives, one zoning violation and bachelorette party at a time.

"Never buy a beach house. Don't even dream about one. Don't save your money or call real estate agents or pick out a white couch. If you must do something, pray for the people who do own beach houses." Following in the fearsome footsteps of Amy Fusselman's The Means (2022), Castellano's wickedly funny debut unfurls in miserable yet gleeful detail the soul-sucking nightmare of owning a house on the Long Island oceanfront. As the novel opens, its narrator, Kathleen Deane, explains that just three years ago she was "a normal person [with] a husband, a job, and a house with no view in Kansas City." But when her husband leaves her to "find himself" on a four-month world cruise, she falls prey to a decade of Christmas letters from a childhood friend singing the praises of living in a beach town on Long Island. She purchases a 700-square-foot oyster shack, recently updated to include indoor plumbing, located in a spot so close to the waterfront that it's "practically floating." Then she drives out there, using the interstate highway system to traverse the five stages grief—denial in Missouri, anger in Illinois, etc.—ultimately becoming "the first person in history to reach acceptance on the Long Island Expressway." Arriving at her new digs, she's greeted by Rosemary, her neighbor from across the street, who draws her attention to a gigantic McMansion being built right next door to her shack. Rosemary will become her partner in a futile war against the construction of the Sugar Cube, which is steaming along with town-sanctioned exceptions to every ordinance on the books. Long and deeply hilarious emails from Kathleen to the town supervisor enumerate the outrages as they pile up, including the time the Sugar Cube's septic tank contaminates the water supply, sending her to the hospital; the illegal rental of the finished house as an Airbnb party venue; and her embroilment in an FBI money-laundering and racketeering sting. Not long after she gets settled in her new home, she takes a depression quiz from the AARP magazine: "a fun little treat!" When she reports that she's only "moderately" depressed, Rosemary comments presciently, "Well, there's still time."

Clearly, the key requirement for successful beach house ownership is a (possibly illegal) sense of humor. Bring it on!