Liza
Klaussmann
On
one of those super-hot days last summer I found myself conjuring up Nick and
Helena, the two young women from Liza Klaussmann's debut novel, Tigers in Red Weather. I was there with the
two cousins. We were drinking gin in the backyard, wearing only our slips,
talking about the new lives we were about to embark on. It was September, 1945;
the war was over, and Helena was about to be married for a second time, Nick
was about to be re-united with her husband, and I was...but then the heat that had
put me there pulled me right back, and I knew that in their fictional world this
moment of happiness was fleeting.
Tigers in Red Weather, written by Herman
Melville's great great great granddaughter, is a family story that invites you
in. The bulk of the novel takes place in the 1960s and is set at Tiger House,
the magnificent old family estate on Martha's Vineyard where Nick and Helena
spent their summers together as children. Though Tiger House is still the same,
the island has changed. When Ed, Helena's son, and Daisy, Nick's daughter,
discover the victim of a brutal murder, the idyllic moments of the past are
forever erased. Telling her story from five different viewpoints, Klaussmann
uses a single act of violence to get at the hidden lives of her characters. The
themes that you will find in this insightful and suspenseful novel include how
our secrets define us, loss of identity in marriage, distortion of character by
outside forces, and the longing we all have for something better.
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