Loss of Innocence

August 12, 2013
Thriller author Patterson ventures into mainstream waters with mixed results in this follow-up to 2012’s Fall from Grace, the second entry in a projected trilogy. In June 1968, 21-year-old Whitney Dane, a child of privilege, is looking forward to her September wedding to Peter Brooks, her socially suitable college sweetheart, on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where her family has a summer house. Whitney anticipates having the picture-perfect marriage of her proper parents, but the times are a-changin’, and things do not go as planned. Early one late June morning, after a swim in the ocean, Whitney encounters Benjamin Blaine, a college dropout who grew up on the island and worked for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Readers will know that poor Whitney will never be the same after meeting Ben, whose “angular frame, taller than Peter’s, suggested litheness and grace even when still.” The plot meanders along without surprise until a few shockers are thrown in toward the end. The result resembles nothing so much as a minor John O’Hara book, concerned, as that author’s work usually was, with notions of class, personal and political change, and, most of all, heartbreak. First printing of 150,000. Agent: Cullen Stanley, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

July 15, 2013
Patterson's (Fall from Grace, 2012, etc.) second effort in a planned trilogy continues his foray into personal drama and away from geopolitical intrigue and suspense. In this prequel to the first novel, linked by prologue and epilogue, the narrative dives into the angst and anger of one-percenters, focusing on the family Dane. Rich-girl Whitney Dane has graduated from Wheaton, and she's at the Dane summer home on Martha's Vineyard planning her September wedding to Peter Brooks, a from-the-right-kind-of-family Dartmouth graduate newly employed at her father's financial firm. It's June 1968, and so it's good that the senior Dane has the influence to secure for Peter a National Guard spot to keep him out of Vietnam. However, at the edge of Whitney's consciousness lingers a hazy doubt: Will she be satisfied as helpmate? Then young Benjamin Blaine, Vineyard native, returns home. Ben dropped out of Yale to work as a Bobby Kennedy gofer. Shattered by Kennedy's assassination, Ben's adrift and in peril of the draft. Whitney and Ben meet. Ben saves Whitney from drowning. To couch events in '60s vernacular, Ben raises Whitney's class consciousness. Ben then clashes with Peter and Dane senior. Loyalties are tested. Relationships fracture. Betrayals ensue. World turned upside down, Whitney reasons herself free of "the carelessness of privilege." Patterson name-drops--William Styron, Dustin Hoffmann, Richard Nixon--and mentions good things--"a snifter of Armagnac on the open-air porch--a 1923 Laberdolive from Gascony." Characters are cliched, but Patterson's family drama thrives on the expected: Charles Dane, controlling, manipulative; Anne Dane, all tradition and pretense; Whitney's sister Janine, a fashion model trapped in addiction after a failed love affair; rich-girl Clarice, Whitney's lifelong friend, openness disguising an ugly secret; boy-in-a-man's-world Peter, attentive, thoughtful. Patterson writes a family saga of class and money, power and pretense, love and loyalty. Think The Thorn Birds or Rich Man, Poor Man among the Martha's Vineyard moneyed set.

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Starred review from August 1, 2013

Whitney Dane, an accomplished novelist at the age of 65, recalls her tumultuous summer of 1968. After graduating from a private all-girls college, she becomes happily engaged to the likable and very suitable Peter Brooks and retreats to the Dane family home on Martha's Vineyard to while away the summer with her best friend, Clarice, and to plan her September wedding. Life is uncomplicated and idyllically idle until one day while visiting her favorite secluded beach she is approached by a handsome young local man, Benjamin Blaine. She learns that Ben escaped a hardscrabble life through a Yale scholarship but then left college to serve as Robert Kennedy's personal aide on that fatal presidential campaign. Ben's fiery intelligence, deep sadness, and capable ways captivate Whitney and incite parental concern. Her continuing exchanges with him and their resulting consequences challenge her to question her goals and her life. VERDICT Patterson's (Fall from Grace; Degree of Guilt) latest novel is a coming-of-age story set amongst the privileged classes of Martha's Vineyard in the shadow of the turbulent political summer of 1968. A title that is dripping with summer diversions, youthful passion and ideals, class tensions, and familial disruptions makes for wonderful reading whatever the season. [Patterson was a panelist on the "Getting Reacquainted with Fiction" panel at LJ's Day of Dialog program.--Ed.]--Sheila M. Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2013
The prequel to Fall from Grace (2012) is a departure for Patterson. Unlike his previous novels, which usually fall into the thriller category, this latest is a bildungsroman set in the summer and fall of a pivotal year in American history, 1968. Patterson introduces us to a youthful Ben Blaine, whose death was the jumping-off point for Fall from Grace, through the eyes of bookish Whitney Dan, a budding writer from a blue-blooded family. Twenty-one-year-old Whitney's life is already mapped out for her. She's engaged to Peter, an ambitious young man who adores her and has won her exacting parents' approval. When Whitney meets Ben on the beach while summering on Martha's Vineyard (Patterson's home turf), she is immediately intrigued by him. Neither class differences nor her family's disapproval deter their burgeoning friendship, but Whitney keeps her attraction to him at bay until a series of startling betrayals forces her to question the path laid out for her. The second in a planned trilogy, Patterson's latest offers up an appealing family drama set against the backdrop of a radically tumultuous and influential time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)