The Island

The Tate family cottage on Tuckernuck Island, off Nantucket, Massachusetts, has sat abandoned for 13 years. Built in 1935 by Birdie and India's grandparents, the house was once the setting for carefree summer vacations. When Birdie Cousins, a recently divorced 57-year-old, decides to reopen the house for a month-long stay in July, she sets in motion a summer that tests and transforms four women bound by family ties.

Birdie's original plan is modest: a week alone with her elder daughter, Chess, before Chess's September wedding to Michael Morgan, a successful businessman she met at a rock club. Chess, the food editor of Glamorous Home magazine, agrees. Birdie contacts Barrett Lee, the son of their longtime caretaker, to arrange renovations. Meanwhile, Birdie begins dating Hank Dunlap, a retired headmaster whose wife, Caroline, has Alzheimer's and lives in a care facility. Birdie falls deeply in love.

Everything changes when Chess calls at three in the morning to announce the engagement is broken. She offers no reason beyond the fact that she is no longer in love with Michael. The vacation expands when Birdie's younger daughter, Tate, a 30-year-old computer programmer, asks to join. Chess quits her job, moves home, and sinks into distress, throwing her cell phone away. On Memorial Day, Michael dies in a rock-climbing accident in Moab, Utah. Chess insists his death is her fault. Birdie calls her sister India Bishop, a curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) and the widow of sculptor Bill Bishop, who shot himself in Bangkok 15 years earlier. India agrees to come for July.

Before the trip, Chess shaves her head completely, donating her hair to Locks of Love. A psychiatrist encourages her to keep a journal, and Chess begins writing a confession in a pink notebook. On July 1, the four women travel to Tuckernuck, ferried by Barrett in his boat, Girlfriend.

Chess's journal entries, interspersed throughout the novel, reveal the secret at the center of her anguish: She fell in love with Nick Morgan, Michael's younger brother and the lead singer of a band called Diplomatic Immunity. Chess met both brothers on the same night at the Bowery Ballroom in New York. Michael was clean-cut and suited for the life Chess had been groomed to live; Nick was brooding and magnetic. Over months of dating Michael, Chess's attraction to Nick grew through stolen encounters, but both refused to act on their feelings for fear of devastating Michael. After Nick returned from a six-month tour, he challenged Chess to end the engagement, insisting the decision could not be about him. They walked 70 blocks through Manhattan, and Nick told Chess he would give up everything to be with her. That night, Chess broke the engagement. Nick later told Chess that Michael had gone climbing alone in Moab without a harness, raising the terrible possibility that the fall was intentional. This secret consumes Chess.

On Tuckernuck, the women settle into a routine shaped by the island's austerity. Barrett visits daily to deliver supplies, and his presence stirs old emotions. Tate has been infatuated with Barrett since she was 17, the last summer the family visited, when Barrett was interested in Chess rather than Tate. Now Barrett reveals that his wife, Stephanie, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) two years earlier, leaving him with two young sons. Tate begins flirting with Barrett, and when he needs a date for a dinner party thrown by his most important client, Anita Fullin, Chess declines and tells him to ask Tate. The party marks a turning point: Afterward, Barrett and Tate make love for the first time. They grow close, and Barrett confides that he borrowed two hundred thousand dollars from the Fullins to pay for private nurses during Stephanie's illness.

India privately wrestles with a crisis involving Tallulah "Lula" Simpson, a gifted painting student at PAFA. India agreed to pose nude for Lula's paintings, and the sessions stirred intense feelings, though India never acted on them. When Lula confessed her love, India pulled away, and Lula withdrew from PAFA. On Tuckernuck, India receives letters from Lula, forcing her to confront long-suppressed feelings. India shares this struggle with Chess, telling her niece that human emotions present themselves in shocking ways and that she is not alone.

Birdie secretly walks to Bigelow Point, the one spot on the island with cell reception, to call Hank. The calls are unsatisfying, so Birdie begins calling her ex-husband, Grant Cousins, instead, finding him surprisingly warm. Eventually, Hank tells Birdie that Caroline has died and that guilt compels him to give Birdie up. Grant comforts her, admits he was an idiot for letting her go, and sends an extravagant bouquet with an intimate card.

Tensions between Tate and Chess escalate when Barrett takes Chess to the hospital for poison ivy and they spend the day together. Tate's jealousy boils over, and she tells Barrett they should stop seeing each other. The sisters' conflict explodes on the beach stairs, where Tate screams that Chess has ruined her life. That night, bats invade the attic, and the absurdity of chasing them out breaks the tension; Chess laughs for the first time in weeks. Chess reads Tate her entire confession by flashlight, and Tate offers a perspective no one else has: Chess did not betray Michael; she betrayed herself by refusing to acknowledge who she really was.

Anita Fullin pressures Barrett to work for her exclusively, leveraging his debt. Barrett accepts but quits after three days when Anita makes romantic advances and treats him as a personal servant. Anita also tries to buy a small driftwood sculpture, Roger, that Bill Bishop made for India, offering up to seventy-five thousand dollars. India firmly refuses. When Anita retaliates against Barrett by calling his clients, several hire him instead.

During a sleepless night, India takes Bill's reading glasses, worn around her neck for 15 years, to the beach and throws them into the ocean, symbolically releasing herself from his memory. She writes back to Lula and resolves to move forward.

Grant arrives unexpectedly on Tuckernuck, brought by Barrett. He tells Birdie he is retiring at the end of the year and has come for her. They make love that night. Tate reunites with Barrett, and the family spends their final day together at North Pond, savoring the island before departure.

The epilogue takes place on September 25, the day Chess was to have married Michael. Tate is at Fenway Park with Barrett and his sons; Barrett puts a fist over his heart to signal "I love you." India brings Lula to meet her son, Billy, daughter-in-law Heidi, and newborn grandson, introducing Lula as a very special friend. Birdie and Grant spend the day together; at dusk, Grant leads Birdie to the floating island in her backyard pond and asks her to dance to their wedding song. Chess works a double shift as sous chef at a French Vietnamese bistro in the Village. During a quiet moment, she concludes that Michael's death was an accident born of recklessness, which begins to release her from guilt. At home, she finds a postcard of Central Park, its message a reference to Nick's signature song, signaling his return to New York. Chess opens the bottle of champagne Tate gave her on Tuckernuck.