The Beach Club

Mack Petersen, 30, is the manager of the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel. He is handsome and well-liked by the majority of those who meet him. Mack has been on the island since he was 18, having come to Nantucket after the death of his parents in Iowa. Mack’s job allows him to avoid thinking about this loss of love, yet he holds on to the family farm because he cannot let go of the past. Mack fears emotional loss and, to some extent, change: Although he often hears the ocean telling him he’s found a home on the island, he consistently doubts it, reluctant to cut his ties to Iowa.

Mack’s fear of making decisive choices complicates his interpersonal relationships. Mack has two love interests: Maribel Cox and Andrea Krane. Maribel is pressuring him to get married after dating for six years, while Andrea doesn’t want a commitment beyond the summer. Mack says that he can’t choose between Maribel and Andrea because he loves them both, but the novel suggests that his ambivalence has more to do with his general reluctance to act. Indeed, his avoidance is such that it takes extreme measures—Vance threatening him at gunpoint—to change him. Even then, he changes his mind repeatedly, breaking up with Maribel, then proposing, and finally ending the relationship for good.