A Hundred Summers

The novel alternates between two timelines, one set in the early 1930s and the other in the summer of 1938, building toward the Great New England Hurricane of September 21, 1938. The story unfolds through the eyes of Lily Dane, a young woman from a wealthy, old-money Protestant family who summers at Seaview, a fictional seaside enclave on a narrow peninsula in Rhode Island.

In October 1931, Lily is a senior at Smith College when her lifelong friend Budgie Byrne drives her to a Dartmouth football game. Budgie points out her boyfriend, Graham Pendleton, a handsome fullback, and the quarterback, Nick Greenwald. Lily is struck by Nick's intense presence on the field, but Budgie warns her off: Nick is Jewish, a social barrier in their world. That evening, the four have dinner, and Nick and Lily connect quietly. The next morning, Nick drives three hours on his broken leg to see Lily at Smith. Over breakfast they discover a powerful mutual attraction, and he kisses her for the first time outside her dormitory.

Their romance deepens over the following weeks, though Lily dreads telling her parents about Nick's Jewish heritage. Aunt Julie, her mother's younger, glamorous, divorced sister, arrives at Smith to warn that Nick's father's firm is near collapse. Undeterred, Lily brings Nick to meet her father on Park Avenue. The visit is a disaster: Her fragile father reacts with stunned horror, demands Nick leave, and collapses weeping after Nick departs with quiet dignity.

On New Year's Eve, Lily sneaks out to attend a masked ball at the Greenwald penthouse. She and Nick slip away to his bedroom, where he reveals he has written her father asking for his blessing. Their intimacy escalates until Lily spots her own mother at the champagne fountain, disguised in a feathered mask at a party she claimed was a charity event. Panicked, Lily pushes Nick away. He drives her to his father's spare apartment in Gramercy Park, where he produces a ring and proposes. Lily accepts, but through the window Nick spots his father's car below with Lily's mother emerging. Lily decides they will elope. They race to his car and drive through the night toward Lake George.

Unable to obtain a marriage license on New Year's Day, they check into a lakeside hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald. In the predawn hours, they make love for the first time. Their happiness shatters when Aunt Julie arrives: Lily's father has had a stroke. Lily says goodbye to Nick at the train station and does not see him again for over six years. Consumed by guilt, believing her elopement caused the stroke, she returns his ring and cuts off all contact. Nick leaves for Paris to run his father's failing firm.

The narrative shifts to May 1938. Lily, now 28, lives a withdrawn life at Seaview raising Kiki, her nearly six-year-old "sister." Budgie, now Mrs. Nicholson Greenwald, opens her family's old Seaview house for the summer. At the Seaview Club, Lily encounters Nick and Budgie for the first time in years. The community is cold toward the Greenwalds because of Nick's Jewish father. Mrs. Hubert, the formidable matriarch of the Seaview Association, appoints herself Lily's protector.

Through the summer, Budgie draws Lily back into friendship while hinting at pregnancy and a happy marriage. Nick bonds with Kiki, teaching her to sail and sharing architectural blueprints. Budgie orchestrates the arrival of Graham, now a famous New York Yankees pitcher, to court Lily. For weeks Graham courts Lily with great decorum. Tensions escalate when a beach football game becomes a physical duel, ending with Graham tackling Nick unconscious. Kiki weeps at Nick's side. That night, a drunken Graham proposes. Lily tells him to ask again in the morning.

On Labor Day, Budgie announces her pregnancy. Shattered, Lily agrees to marry Graham. They have hurried, clumsy sex in his car that night. Graham leaves for New York the next morning, and Lily's mother gives him the key to the family apartment.

Weeks later, Lily arrives in Manhattan and discovers Graham in a sexual act with Maisie Laidlaw, their 16-year-old neighbor. She ends the engagement and goes to Nick. Over dinner, Nick reveals he married Budgie partly to forget and punish Lily. He slept with Budgie only once, before the marriage, and never again. Budgie's baby is not his. On their honeymoon, Budgie refused to bear his children because of his Jewish heritage, proposed an open marriage, and rejected his plea for a divorce. Budgie has also been sleeping with Graham all summer.

Nick takes Lily to the Gramercy Park apartment, the same one from their elopement night. He confesses his years of dissolute life in Paris and his failed attempts to forget her. He insists on sleeping on the sofa, refusing to make them adulterers, and drives to Seaview the next morning to demand a divorce.

Lily visits Peter van der Wahl, Aunt Julie's ex-husband and the family's discreet lawyer, who reveals a truth Lily has never suspected: Her mother had an affair with Nick's father, and Kiki is their child. The world assumed Kiki was Lily's daughter. The stroke was caused not by the elopement but by Lily's father discovering his wife's affair. All these years, her mother let Lily carry the guilt.

Lily races to Seaview as the weather deteriorates. Nick has demanded a divorce from Budgie, who attempted to slit her wrists before he stopped her. He returns with the sedated Budgie and pulls everyone into the Greenwald house as the hurricane strikes. Nick reveals the final secret: After Lily went silent, he received his letters back unopened with a forged note bearing her initials, claiming the child was not his. Sent by Lily's mother, the note destroyed him. Budgie, half-conscious upstairs, reveals that her father sexually abused her as a child and that she used her knowledge of the affair to blackmail Nick into marriage.

Nick leaves to fetch Lily's mother from the Dane cottage. Kiki secretly follows him. The storm surge hits, and the house breaks apart. Lily carries Budgie to the attic, puts her on a floating door when the walls collapse, and kicks them both across the flooded bay. They reach shore. Lily holds Budgie through the night, but Budgie has been struck in the head and is dead.

At dawn, Lily climbs to an overlook. Every one of the 43 houses on Seaview Neck has been destroyed. She spots a scrap of yellow amid the wreckage: Nick's sou'wester, a waterproof hat, wrapped around Kiki. Nick emerges carrying Kiki in his arms. They had sheltered in the stone battery, a coastal fortification at the end of the Neck and the only structure that survived. Kiki's arm is broken, but she is alive and hungry for breakfast.

An epilogue set in June 1944 reveals the rebuilt life. Lily and Nick married on Valentine's Day 1939 with Kiki as bridesmaid. Nick became an architect, and Lily became a journalist. Nick is now a lieutenant serving in England on D-Day. Graham was killed in a dogfight over the English Channel months earlier. Lily delivers a daughter, Julie Helen Greenwald. A Western Union telegram arrives: Nick is alive, overjoyed, and longing to hold his family.