Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”-deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. The fun, witty dialogue strikes the right note, as does the attention to detail, from the iced sweet tea to the casual conversations of Woodburn’s residents.įrom the spry octogenarians who compose the town’s old guard to the scheming Darlene who has her hat set for Will, Holton’s novel is brimming with unforgettable characters, smart conversations and an engaging mystery that makes spending a summer in the South a tantalizing proposition.įour men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions-as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer-and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. Holton skillfully weaves the stories of Ava and her vagabond early life with that of irrepressible but equally irresponsible Clotilde, together with those of Charlie and the Woodburn girls. Charlie’s death from drowning decades ago fascinates Ava, who is convinced his demise was not the accident everyone seems to think it was. Jake’s father was the son of Charlie Woodburn, a ne’er-do-well who married Fanny back during Prohibition. And then, of course, there is Jake, who is also a Woodburn, but from the other branch of the family. Named after her friend Will’s family, Woodburn is a typical Southern town, peopled by colorful Southerners: There are Will’s aunts, the sweet, cat-loving Fanny, married to her childhood sweetheart, Maitland, and Josephine, the spinster with an iron will Clara, the African-American who lives in the cottage behind the Woodburn’s grand home Alice, whose gay son, Fraser, channels Edgar Allan Poe and Darlene, the failed blond beauty queen who has her sights set on Will. Soon she’s chucked the boyfriend and her job back in Chicago and headed for Woodburn, Tenn. When Will, an old friend from college days, invites her to come South for the summer, live with his elderly but well-to-do aunts and write her novel, Ava accepts. Holton ( Beach Trip, 2009) takes a trip to a small Tennessee town and finds a colorful cast with a long-hidden secret among the azalea bushes and magnolia trees.Īva’s mother, the fanciful Clotilde, has died, her love affair has gone bad and her dreams of writing a novel are unrealized.

Cathy holton beach trip