Loss Of Innocence by Richard North Patterson
Why?
I was browsing in the Yellow Van (otherwise known as the mobile library in Leeds) and this caught my eye. I may have been influenced by Stephen Fry calling it "An extraordinary novel" on the front cover.
What?
Otherwise known as amazon spiel:
June, 1968. America is in a state of turbulence, engulfed in civil unrest and uncertainty. Yet for Whitney Dane - spending the summer of her twenty-second year on Martha's Vineyard - life could not be safer, nor the future more certain.
Educated at Wheaton, soon to be married, and the youngest daughter of the patrician Dane family, Whitney has everything she has ever wanted, and is everything her all-powerful and doting father, Charles Dane, wants her to be.
Educated at Wheaton, soon to be married, and the youngest daughter of the patrician Dane family, Whitney has everything she has ever wanted, and is everything her all-powerful and doting father, Charles Dane, wants her to be.
But the Vineyard's still waters are disturbed by the appearance of Benjamin Blaine. An underprivileged, yet fiercely ambitious and charismatic young man, Blaine is a force of nature neither Whitney nor her family could have prepared for.
As Ben's presence begins to awaken independence within Whitney, it also brings deep-rooted Dane tensions to a dangerous head. And soon Whitney's set-in-stone future becomes far from satisfactory, and her picture-perfect family far from pretty.
A sweeping family drama of dark secrets and individual awakenings, set during the most consequential summer of recent American history.
Rusty words ☕ ☕ ☕
"Organize your time, and husband your resources. If I had to stay up the night before an exam, I'd already fallen short. It's as big a sin to be surprised by your own life as it is to let other people define it."
The first thing I learnt from this book was a bit of geography. Martha's Vineyard is an island in Massachusetts (so named by an English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold). It is known for being a summer home to the affluent upper classes which is key to this story. I read the back cover and expected a romance-with-a-bad-boy kind of novel. It isn't. It is a story of class and the expectations of the woman within that upper class. It is 1968 and yet the struggles and issues highlighted reminded me of historical fiction based in the UK in the early 19th century; think Belgravia by Julian Fellowes. The background music though is the civil rights movement fighting for enlightened times and equal opportunities, the mass protests against Vietnam and yet we see a woman, Whitney Dane, who's role in life is pre-supposed and dictated in a way I assumed only common to earlier times. Whitney had to consciously fight not to become a self fulfilling prophesy. I felt real sadness witnessing Whitney doubt her own identity as men tried to fix her route of navigation only for her to discover that they were all flawed. Some in ways which she can never forgive.
Charles Dane, Whitney's father, is the man who stated "it's as big a sin to be surprised by your own life" and I was not surprised by his tale or by the outcome for many of the characters. This though did not distract from the novel. I still wanted to read it all and I am keen to add "Fall from Grace" to my reading list. I have only just discovered that Loss of Innocence was written as the prequel. I am hoping that we meet the character of Carla Pacelli in one of the later books as I was keen to compare her story to Whitney's.
Interestingly, I would have assumed that this exploration of the woman's role would have been written by a woman so Mr North Patterson did well to pick an unexpected moral subject. This book has a lot of time. Whitney has a lot of time to consider her place, her role, her identity and this is, of course, benefited to her by the wealth of her family. Many of us, still, do not have the time to even analyse yet alone fight the roles that are laid out for us. This reverse snobbery that I own did make it difficult for me to sympathise with Whitney. But her story was interesting, although a little pandered, and I enjoyed it.
Charles Dane, Whitney's father, is the man who stated "it's as big a sin to be surprised by your own life" and I was not surprised by his tale or by the outcome for many of the characters. This though did not distract from the novel. I still wanted to read it all and I am keen to add "Fall from Grace" to my reading list. I have only just discovered that Loss of Innocence was written as the prequel. I am hoping that we meet the character of Carla Pacelli in one of the later books as I was keen to compare her story to Whitney's.
Interestingly, I would have assumed that this exploration of the woman's role would have been written by a woman so Mr North Patterson did well to pick an unexpected moral subject. This book has a lot of time. Whitney has a lot of time to consider her place, her role, her identity and this is, of course, benefited to her by the wealth of her family. Many of us, still, do not have the time to even analyse yet alone fight the roles that are laid out for us. This reverse snobbery that I own did make it difficult for me to sympathise with Whitney. But her story was interesting, although a little pandered, and I enjoyed it.
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