Seating Arrangements

Seating Arrangements
Maggie Shipstead

A New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2012 Dylan Thomas Prize, this ebook special edition contains exclusive bonus content.The Van Meters have gathered at their family retreat on the New England island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne to an impeccably appropriate young man. The weekend is full of lobster and champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust seep through the cracks in the revelry.Winn Van Meter, father-of-the-bride, has spent his life following the rules of the east coast upper crust, but now, just shy of his sixtieth birthday, he must finally confront his failings, his desires, and his own humanity.This ebook edition contains an extended extract of Maggie Shipstead’s second novel, Astonish Me.

About the Author (#ulink_028bd6fd-22b8-5253-ad9d-498a867c8017)

Maggie Shipstead graduated from Harvard in 2005 and earned an M.F.A at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was also a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Seating Arrangements is her first novel and was awarded the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2012, the largest award in the world for writers under 30. She was also awarded the LA Times Book Award for First Fiction. She lives in California.

About the Book (#ulink_da0afe63-bb3f-5ac7-afed-25db8ad59b1a)

The Van Meters have gathered at their family retreat on the New England island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne to an impeccably appropriate young man. The weekend is full of lobster and champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust seep through the cracks in the revelry.

Winn Van Meter, father-of-the-bride, has spent his life following the rules of the east coast upper crust, but now, just shy of his sixtieth birthday, he must finally confront his failings, his desires, and his own humanity.

Praise for Seating Arrangements (#ulink_0dd22ba9-472e-54d1-88ea-6a58cb324f2b)

‘Irresistible … her prose is joyously good’

DAILY MAIL

‘A ferociously clever comedy of manners’

GUARDIAN

‘A wise, sophisticated and funny novel about family, fidelity, class and crisis’

MARIE CLAIRE

‘Well-observed, hilarious, yet moving’

WOMAN & HOME

‘Definitely one to watch’

GRAZIA

‘Maggie Shipstead is an outrageously gifted writer’

Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

‘Startling beauty’

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Seating Arrangements

Maggie Shipstead

Copyright (#ulink_a8475aa0-7e6a-5744-9429-f3d4e9ed323a)

The Borough Press

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2012

Copyright © Maggie Shipstead 2012

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013. Designed by Stuart Bache.

Maggie Shipstead asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

‘The Waste Land’ taken from The Waste Land and Other Poems © Estate of T.S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007467730

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007425235

Version: 2015-08-03

To my parents, Patrick and Susan,

pillars of everything

The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,

Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends

Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.

And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;

Departed, have left no addresses.

T. S. ELIOT, “The Waste Land”

Contents