The Guest Book by Sarah Blake, Flatiron Books © 2019, ISBN 9781250-110251, 480 pages, $27.99
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — When Ogden Moss Milton purchased Crockett’s Island, Maine, in 1935, possibly unbeknownst to him, but fairly obvious to outside observers, he established a monument to white privilege. Not just any white, mind you, but rather the whites whom his wife Kitty would define as “our kind” of people, Anglo-Saxon Protestants blessed with old money, people who attended all the right schools, reliable colleagues with well-chiseled senses of social propriety. The Miltons were bred to welcome others with a practiced hospitality, to smile genteelly and shake hands with visitors to their monument. However, neither by word, nor by any overt deed on the Miltons’ part, outsiders came to understand that, whatever their own accomplishments, this was one circle that they would never enter.
In the big white house on a promontory above the beach, the Miltons kept a guest book, dutifully recording the comings and goings of social callers, who for the most part, were of their kind. But some of the most important stories could later be told by people who never signed that book.
We follow three generations of Miltons: Ogden and Kitty; their three children Evelyn, Joan, and Moss; and two of their grandchildren, Evie and Minerva. While some of Ogden’s and Kitty’s descendants resisted the pull of Crockett’s Island’s traditions upon them, wanting to widen their circle, others cast themselves willingly into its embrace. Some Miltons wanted to change with the times; whereas for other Miltons, although worldly matters were far from ideal, they personally were quite comfortable.
In this novel, we meet three Jewish families, each making their appearance in a separate generation. In the first generation, the Hoffmans seek refuge in America from Hitler’s Germany. In the second generation, Len Levy falls in love with Joan Milton. In the third generation, Joan’s daughter, Evie, is married to Paul Schlessinger. Seth Schlesinger is the fourth generation, unaware of most of his maternal side’s history.
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Author Sarah Blake will discuss and sign her new novel The Guest Book at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, May 16, at Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Avenue, La Jolla.
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The Miltons were self-satisfied but not particularly self-aware. An African-American writer, Reginald Pauling, who had been a close friend of Len Levy, understood them all too well. As a writer, he was drawn to their story; as an African-American, he was repulsed by their obliviousness to the suffering of others.
Blake is a masterful story-teller, whose past novel, The Postmistress, won considerable acclaim. I believe The Guest Book will as well.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com