In this installment of Page 69,
we put Samantha Bruce-Benjamin's The Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper Club to the test.
Ok, Samantha, set up page 69 for us.
As
she prepares for her last party at The Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper
Club, legendary society hostess, Serena Lyons, recalls the
life-changing events of her debut party, thirty-one years earlier.
What is The Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper Club about?
The
novel chronicles five minutes in the life of Serena Lyons, a celebrated
Hamptons society hostess, and her guests, who have gathered for the last party
of the season at the fabled Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper Club. As The
Great Hurricane of 1938 barrels toward The Hamptons and prepares to make
landfall, we learn of the tragedies that left their indelible mark on Serena,
the promises that were made and broken, and the decisions that brought all of
them there that evening, their destinies forever intertwined and sealed.
Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate sense of
what The Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper Club is about? Does it align
itself with the book’s overall theme?
P69 fairly accurately encapsulates one
of the dominant themes in The Westhampton
Leisure Hour and Supper Club, in that it observes a defining moment in the
life of society hostess, Serena Lyons. Over the course of five minutes, as
Serena watches her guests arrive from her bedroom window, she relives the five
most important moments of her life, with this scene forming the culmination of
her first reminiscence: the catalytic moment when she was separated from her
greatest love, Kit Peel, at her debut party on her eighteenth birthday in 1907.
As the entire novel hinges on Serena’s
desperate hope that Kit will at last return to her, after thirty-one years of
absence, p69 reveals the conflict and confusion surrounding their initial
separation and the idea of the party as a prison for Serena, one into which she
is locked forever – albeit unwittingly – by the actions of various different
characters. The mystery surrounding her role as a hostess and her past is
explored throughout the novel from the perspectives of those characters, some
of whom are alluded to on this page: her future husband, Captain Lyons, her
best-friend, Teddy Worthington, as well as various guests; all of whom possess
a secret about Kit that could have changed the course of Serena’s life
irrevocably.
What p69 fails to capture, however,
are the competing narrative voices of the story, and the scope of the party
itself. In its entirety, The Westhampton
Leisure Hour and Supper Club is as much as a celebration of life, in all of
its comedy and tragedy, as it is a poignant rumination on those handful of memories
that define who we are and impel the choices we make: the choices and decisions
made for us and by us that are decided and enacted in less than a minute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAGE 69
The Westhampton Leisure Hour and Supper Club
One moment more,
I think. What Kit would say to stop me from leaving and I would always stay.
But this is also a choice I’m making, the reality of loss crippling: It is part
will, part acceptance, my allowing Teddy to guide me. It is his will imposed
onto mine, a debt I owe because I left Teddy for Kit. Change
this, something in me pleads, see
straight inside me and change this, make the choice for me…. “Please,” I whisper, “I knew you before….” And
I almost scream, I almost stop breathing, as I force myself to accept; he is
not going to move. He is going to let me go.
I hear
my mother’s voice, so much missed, utter her crippling legacy once more: “The summer redbirds, Serena. They only stay
for a summer and then they fly away.” I think of the bird at my window, how
different a girl I was mere seconds earlier. And I look to Kit again, that
brightly plumed figure of my childhood, and it is as if he is rushing toward me
over the fields, or waiting in the courtyard to take me sailing, or telling me,
“There will be such things, Serena, such things.” All of those perfect moments
before that I will clutch to me forever. And all I can see is his beauty, all
that I know is his love, as our eyes meet for the last time and the door
fastens shut.
I cannot
count the tears as Teddy turns me decidedly round and hastily wipes them from
my cheeks: “I’m so sorry, Serena,” he says. “I tried…” But I am not listening.
All I can hear is the sound of my heart, pounding louder and louder, as the
guests swarm around me. I see my father watching me at Captain Lyon’s side. I
look to him, searching his face for any sign of love for me, but all he does is
turn away in contempt. “Serena,” Captain Lyons says softly, stepping toward me.
“It’s better this way. Let him go. He’s not worthy of you.” “Let him go? Go
where?” I ask.
Yet, I
don’t wait for his response, for it is only now that I truly understand what
I’ve done, where my passivity has led me, as the full horror of it settles over
me with uncompromising finality. Did my father and Captain Lyons know
something? What were they not telling me? “No,” I scream, trying to push back
through the crowd to follow Kit, knowing I won’t be able to live with this
uncertainty: I need to ask him why. Nobody will ever tell me the truth but Kit.
But I can’t; the people, congratulating me and wishing me good luck, carry me
deeper into the house and I’m forced to accept that there’s no getting out of
this. The party has consumed me whole.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Samantha Bruce-Benjamin is the author of The Art of Devotion, an Examiner and Bookreporter Best Book of 2010. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, she holds a Master of Arts with Honors in English Literature from The University of Edinburgh. A former Random House and BBC literary editor, she divides her time between Edinburgh and New York.
www.samanthabrucebenjamin.com, @SamBruceBenj1, facebook, goodreads
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