Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

New York City? Chess thought. Who would send her a postcard of New York City when she lived in New York City? She felt a buzzing along her hairline, and her head snapped up. Central Park. She flipped the card over.

It said: Okay, baby, okay.

Chess’s heart fell to her feet, like a stone she could pick up and throw.

Nick.

She stood up and walked into her kitchen. Her fridge was nearly empty-she ate breakfast from a street vendor and her other meals at the restaurant-but she had been saving the bottle of Veuve Clicquot that Tate had given her on Tuckernuck for an extraordinary occasion.

She pulled it out. It was shockingly cold.

Okay, baby, okay.

She popped the cork.

There are two challenges in writing about Tuckernuck Island. One is that it is difficult to set a novel in a place where not much happens. (When I asked longtime Tuckernuck residents what they do on Tuckernuck, a popular response was, “Do? Why, we visit!”) The other challenge was gaining access to Tuckernuck, because the island is privately owned. So the first people I would like to thank are Mark Williams and Jeffrey Johnsen, who took me to Tuckernuck on one of the most beautiful days of the summer last July. I fell madly in love with the place, and that was largely due to my wonderful guides. Everyone who has ever stayed or lived on Tuckernuck has a story to tell about it, and I heard a lot of those stories, the most colorful of which came from my agent, Michael Carlisle, whose family owned land on Tuckernuck for something like centuries. The summer residents of Tuckernuck are private people, and my hope is that this book celebrates the place where they live rather than exploits it.

Moving from country to city, I would like to thank all of the amazing people I have met at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, or PAFA, most especially Gerry and Rosemary Barth (aka Mary Rose Garth), who introduced me to the world of PAFA, as well as board member Anne McCollum and president of the board of directors Don Caldwell and his wife, Linda Aversa (aka Spencer and Aversa Frost). Huge thanks to Stan Greidus, for giving me the lowdown on student life, and to the president of PAFA, David Brigham, who gave me a comprehensive tour and made me feel like part of the family.

In New York, I would like to thank my dynamic-duo agenting team of Michael Carlisle and David Forrer at Inkwell Management, as well as all of the brilliant and generous minds at Little, Brown/Hachette, including my editor, Reagan Arthur, Heather Fain, Michael Pietsch, David Young, and the wizard-guru of all things trade paperback, Terry Adams.

On Nantucket, I send a big hug and a kiss out to my Inner Circle-you know who you are-who have stood by me through a couple of roller-coaster years. Of special note this year are Wendy Hudson, rock-star independent bookseller and owner of Nantucket Bookworks (who gave me the Tuckernuck story of riding around the island on a bike with no brakes!), and Wendy Rouillard, author of the Barnaby children’s books, who has tirelessly talked publishing with me for more than a decade now. A loud and enthusiastic shout-out to Chuck and Margie Marino, simply because they are two of the finest people walking the earth and I love them to bits.

Thank you to my summer nanny, Stephanie McGrath, for smiling even after a hundred-and-one trips to the Delta Fields and forty-two trips to the Hub for bubble gum. A huge thank you to Anne and Whitney Gifford for use of their house on Barnabas Lane-no book would ever get written if it weren’t for Barnabas! And thank you, always, forever, in extremis, to Heather Feather, for her love, support, friendship, and positive life force.

On the home front, thank you to my husband, Chip Cunningham, the best Mr. Mom in all the world; to my spirited, creative, and very funny sons, Maxx and Dawson, who really know how to rock out (!); and to my singing, skipping daughter, Shelby, who fills our house with sunshine each and every day.

This book is for my mother. Not only does she allow me to move back home for a month each fall so I can revise in peace, but she taught me absolutely everything I know about unconditional love. Thanks, Mom.

ELIN HILDERBRAND lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her eight previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Essay by Elin Hilderbrand

I decided to set The Island on Tuckernuck because I wanted something different, something purer and simpler than Nantucket. Life on Tuckernuck is stripped of everything but the necessities. This allowed my characters to deal with each other without any static from the outside world. It also made the outside world seem foreign and exotic and remote, which was another element I was after. Clearly, all four of my characters needed time away, and they got it.

There is a sense of extreme privilege associated with Tuckernuck. The island is privately owned; to see it, you have to be invited. The families who live there have lived there forever, so there is very limited entrée. It’s so New England/Yankee to attach cachet to a place that has nothing-and I mean nothing -but peace, quiet, and natural beauty. It’s a reverse snobbism, or perhaps it’s the purest form of exclusivity. There are no big or grandiose houses on Tuckernuck, and there money can’t buy you anything (there are no shops or restaurants). The cars on Tuckernuck are all rough-and-tumble four-wheel-drive vehicles with whirligig propellers on their roofs to keep the seagulls away. The prestige in Tuckernuck is how long your family has summered there, also something money can’t buy. Things on Tuckernuck must always be done a certain way-the way they’ve always been done-otherwise they lose their meaning. It’s important, for example, that Barrett now works for Birdie’s family on Tuckernuck, just as his father did before him; and at the end, when newcomer Trey takes over, that the women are disappointed-it’s just not comme il faut.

So all these factors combine to create a summer getaway unlike any other. For the purposes of The Island, Tuckernuck is almost like a character and is a theme. It’s the place with the history and the family memories, the place that draws the women back and reunites them.

Tuckernuck Beach Picnic Menu

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Buttermilk Herb Dip

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Yellow Tomato Gazpacho

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Grilled Cumin Shrimp

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Sarah Leah Chase’s Corn Salad

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Rum Cake with Fresh Berries

Recipes for Tuckernuck Beach Picnic

Author’s Note: These recipes are my own, except for the corn salad, which is a recipe of Sarah Leah Chase, who is perhaps Nantucket’s most famous at-home gourmet and domestic doyenne. This picnic serves six to eight people.

Buttermilk Herb Dip

Serve with potato chips or crudités - celery sticks work especially well.

1½ cups sour cream

1¼ cups buttermilk

1 cup mayonnaise

¼ cup white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley