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Seating Arrangements
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Seating Arrangements
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Seating Arrangements
Audiobook12 hours

Seating Arrangements

Written by Maggie Shipstead

Narrated by Arthur Morey

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

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About this audiobook

A New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2012 Dylan Thomas Prize and 2012 L.A. Times First Novel Prize

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.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJul 4, 2013
ISBN9780007538294
Unavailable
Seating Arrangements
Author

Maggie Shipstead

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. Her debut novel, Seating Arrangements, won the Dylan Thomas Prize and the LA Times Prize for First Fiction. Astonish Me is her second novel.

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Reviews for Seating Arrangements

Rating: 3.1631420126888217 out of 5 stars
3/5

331 ratings43 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    all the characters in this book needed therapy. They were all unfeeling and ambivalent. There were some funny moments and I did want to know how things ended, but to me the book was just ok.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Apparently it's a thing to hate the output of alum from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, because as you skim through the reviews on GoodReads, the comments are peppered with snide remarks and tut-tutting of the decline of quality of IWW's output. Who knew?

    Was Seating Arrangements a tour de force and innovative? No. Was it sloppy and a bit amateurish at times? Absolutely. Was the language overwrought? At times. But is this a bad story? The short answer is no. It's clunky, some of the plot points felt like they were thrown in at the last minute, and some of the characters were definitely there to fill a quota but there is something here. You just have to be patient as you dig through the muck and Shipstead can turn a beautiful phrase more often than not.
    I could be a bit biased -- I have a weakness for anything relating to farces surrounding blue bloods and their world. And this felt like someone had done their research and wrote as if they knew this particular world without ever having stepped into it. So think of this as if Whit Stillman and Bret Easton Ellis were high on acid, conceived Shipstead as their prodigal daughter in their ultra preppy way and you'll have encompassed the writer completely.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This book was a waste of my time and money. I hated the characters- spolied, rich, entitled people who learn nothing from their experiences. There wasn't much of a story beyond their squabbles.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A pitch-perfect comedy of manners examining the cracks in an upper-class family during one wedding weekend. I gobbled it up in a matter of hours.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this book a lot. It depicts a family in preparation of a wedding weekend. It is about human relations, regret, love and everybody trying to make the best of it with various results. The main character is the father of the bride who is going to a bit of a crisis. The narrator has just the right voice for the part.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mild spoilers. I enjoyed this better than Astonish Me. It did an excellent job with setting--maybe I am just a sucker for a Massachusetts beach.. She writes some great sentences and has some great imagery. Strong tone, plot works well, pov choices pretty good. I do get tired of shifting pov especially when anyone can take over a section rather than it being limited to a few characters because it feels like she can just jump into anyone when she needs to make a certain point. I also was underwhelmed by the themes. And the overwhelming white/straightness. But the exploding whale was excellent.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If Franzen did The OC. A hugely enjoyable read that underscores Shipstead’s talent. Will hoover up the book that falls between this and Great Circle, then eagerly anticipate whatever comes next
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a very interesting book. It was a debut novel and a winner of awards for new fiction. The writing was terrific and that was the best part of it. On the surface the story would not have been one that I would normally see as ending up with my 4.5 star rating. Many of the ratings were lower and I think it had to do with the main character Winn Van Meter. The story revolves around the wedding of his 7 month pregnant daughter Daphne. It covers the 3 days leading up to the wedding which takes place on a fictional island off the New England coast. The characters are all upper class and they have all the requisite traits of the rich that we don't like. Winn is particularly unlikable and is the main character so I can see how this might put people off, but Shipstead does such a good job of getting into his head so that you really come to understand him. He and his youngest daughter Livia are the main characters and by getting into their heads and those of some of the minor characters, she does a good job of giving the book balance. There is a lot of humor and satire. It is always interesting to see how the rich live but also how trivial their concerns are in a world of climate change and covid-19. At 300 pages it is an excellent read. I will check out her other 2 novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    adult fiction; human comedy of romantic escapades taking place over a weekend wedding on a New England island, filled with a delightful and lifelike cast, some of whom are definitely more WASPy than others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a comedy of manners and takes place over 4 days -- a wedding weekend uniting the Van Meter family and the Duff family, one-percenters from the East Coast at the unpretentiously, yet tastefully shabby island home of the Van Meters. The bride Daphne Van Meter who is 7 ms. pregnant, and the groom, Greyson Duff met at Princeton and have assembled a coterie of bridesmaids and groomsmen of privilege, yet not particularly good behavior. Daphne's sister Livia, who is on the rebound from another wealthy island family's son and Agatha, Daphne's prep school best friend both sleep with Greyson's brother Sterling, an expat bad boy escaping all the blue blood drama in Hong Kong and only in town for the wedding. Meanwhile, Daphne's father Winn, who is the main protagonist, really, lusts after Agatha, obsesses about his pending golf club membership (or lack there of) and has a ill-timed midlife crisis in the same time-frame as the wedding. Throw in the requisite alcoholic Aunt Celeste, gay cousin, Dryden, cheery wedding planner, Sam Snead (female), ditzy grandmothers Mopsy and Oatsie and the names alone will have you chuckling. Biddy Van Meter, the eternally calm, capable and kind mother of the bride is one of the truly likeable characters that you don't find yourself judging. As far as the rest go, it is good to be in on the joke and perfectly acceptable to dismiss the lot as ridiculous. There is depth here too -- a lot of existential reflection especially from Winn and Livia, which slows the book down a bit, but also elevates it above a mere beach read. Would love to see it as a movie!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Painful

    I am forever an optimist when reading a book. I think that even "bad" books have a story from which we can learn. I'm not sure what to say about this novel. Even at the end, I'm stuck wondering...why? What was the purpose? Some books leave you with deep contemplation while the book just left me confused. There were several storylines relating to several of the characters with the timeline fluctuating from past to present. I'm finding I have to try too hard to find merit in this story.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5


    The author excelled at creating characters I disliked. While I finished the book I did not enjoy it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book really should have been better. Sadly too many books are more about exposing all that the author learned in their creative writing class, than they do focusing on the story itself. Yes the book is well written but there is too much stereotyping and predictability running through the storyline, and the end of the story if you want to call it that, seemed rushed and unfinished.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Apparently it's a thing to hate the output of alum from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, because as you skim through the reviews on GoodReads, the comments are peppered with snide remarks and tut-tutting of the decline of quality of IWW's output. Who knew?

    Was Seating Arrangements a tour de force and innovative? No. Was it sloppy and a bit amateurish at times? Absolutely. Was the language overwrought? At times. But is this a bad story? The short answer is no. It's clunky, some of the plot points felt like they were thrown in at the last minute, and some of the characters were definitely there to fill a quota but there is something here. You just have to be patient as you dig through the muck and Shipstead can turn a beautiful phrase more often than not.
    I could be a bit biased -- I have a weakness for anything relating to farces surrounding blue bloods and their world. And this felt like someone had done their research and wrote as if they knew this particular world without ever having stepped into it. So think of this as if Whit Stillman and Bret Easton Ellis were high on acid, conceived Shipstead as their prodigal daughter in their ultra preppy way and you'll have encompassed the writer completely.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved this book . . . until the end. It seemed to just kind of end, but I don't know where else it might have gone I guess. Everyone had some closure. The author is great at taking us in and out of everyone's stories and giving us a sense of place. Very nicely done. I enjoyed it a lot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    all the characters in this book needed therapy. They were all unfeeling and ambivalent. There were some funny moments and I did want to know how things ended, but to me the book was just ok.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Maggie Shipstead is an accomplished, creative, and insightful author; and you know it from the way she writes. The words are woven in such a way that indicates the author is fully aware of her skill. It got in the way of enjoying the story initially, but soon I fell into the dysfunctional yet ethereal groove she created. Beautifully explored characters and a teaspoon of mysticism set in a the drama of a wedding between two rich white families make an odd threesome. Shipstead tacitly acknowledges the challenge in her writing and tackles it. She may have even intentionally created it herself. It took 89 pages to find one that I wished to fold over and return to. A good read, to be sure, but no need to go far out of your way to get your hands on a copy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Maggie Shipstead is an accomplished, creative, and insightful author; and you know it from the way she writes. The words are woven in such a way that indicates the author is fully aware of her skill. It got in the way of enjoying the story initially, but soon I fell into the dysfunctional yet ethereal groove she created. Beautifully explored characters and a teaspoon of mysticism set in a the drama of a wedding between two rich white families make an odd threesome. Shipstead tacitly acknowledges the challenge in her writing and tackles it. She may have even intentionally created it herself. It took 89 pages to find one that I wished to fold over and return to. A good read, to be sure, but no need to go far out of your way to get your hands on a copy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book about a family during a long weekend in preparation for a daughter's wedding was highly disappointing. It started well enough, but it was just too weird in the middle (exploding whales and everybody wanted to have sex with everybody else!) and a very abrupt ending.... It seems the author had reached her preassigned word limit and just quit!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Shipstead is an immensely talented writer, with laser-accurate descriptions and characters of remarkable depth. But this book was too subtle for my taste: the plot moved too slowly and the sparse dramatic events fizzled to nothing. I'm broadcasting my ignorance here, but I was left without much understanding of how the characters were transformed by the few days we spent with them.

    Much of my dissatisfaction may have been the simple result of mismatched expectations; the blurb mentions a wedding, champagne, lust and an escaped lobster. It's true, all these things are present, but I was expecting a lighter, more comical story, not the kind of novel which gets itself on the literature syllabus at serious universities.

    I take my hat off to Shipstead's prowess as a writer, but for entertainment, I prefer a faster-moving yarn.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Here's a quick diagnostic to assess whether you'd enjoy this book:

    If someone told you they were wearing seersucker ironically, would you walk away or would you ask how it was working for them?

    Seating Arrangements is populated with characters in seersucker, whale belts and pastel pop-collared polos, and very few of them wear--or do--anything with irony. Those that try largely fail. So we are surrounded by Biddy and Mopsy and Oatsie (I kid you not) and more last-names-as-first names than the freshman class of Hah-vahd, all organized around a wedding and the middle-age flailings of Winn Van Meter. It's almost as easy to hate these people as it is to dismiss them.

    And yet I didn't hate them or dismiss them. You might (see question above), but I was entertained on nearly every page, and even moved. Maggie Shipstead's writing is superb; I crossed from admiration into envy several times. She manages to weave the back story into the grim present with finesse, and we come to see that for all their stuffy posturing, their suffering (and loyalty) is very real. It's a neat trick, and served up with plenty of laughs.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I wanted to like this book. So many reviews stated laugh out loud funny...I wish I could have found a single part that was funny. All I could find was rich people complaining about their lives and playing the victim.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a good read this was – rich in detail and characterisation, conveying a strong sense of physical location, as well as the class-conscious demographic among which it is set. The story covers just a couple of days in the lives of the Van Meter family, but with many flashbacks and a perceptive eye for the subtleties of social interaction, it paints a fascinating picture of a troubled family, and in particular its ageing patriarch, Win. He is in many ways a quite appalling character and yet his cringemaking attitudes and actions are explained by his past, and you can’t hate him.It is such a wise book – its wisdom all the better for being understated, whether it is shining a light on the obsession with exclusive clubs and social climbing in a supposedly class-free nation, or just the business of life in general: (“....Dominique didn’t know if she was strong or not. All she knew was that her best decisions had been the ones that brought her freedom, but talking about freedom with Biddy would be like explaining Africa to a giraffe that had been born in the Bronx Zoo.”). Definitely an author to watch.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Completely engrossing tale of high WASP and wannabee high WASP characters, organized around a weekend wedding on an island in New England. Extremely well written, with most characters full of life and truth. Lots of surprises; no hackneyed plot twists. Hated to finish!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This story revolves around a weekend of wedding preparations for a very pregnant bride, daughter of Winn and Biddy. The entire extended families have convened, as have the bridesmaids and groomsmen. It is a time for reflection and memories, mainly by Winn, the father of the bride, and Livia, the bride's sister. Winn is a pretentious, shallow man whose main goal in life is to achieve membership in an exclusive club that doesn't want him. Livia's main goal is to find a man to replace the one she lost. Agatha, one of the bridesmaids, figures heavily in their drama. This is a well-crafted social satire. The poignancy is limited because the main characters are simply unlikable and self-absorbed, but Maggie Shipstead does an excellent job of portraying them within the confines of their limited lifestyle.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A family prepares for a wedding. Over the course of a few days, sadness/hilarity/mayhem ensues. The hapless main character was not my type of protagonist but the surrounding characters redeem it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I just couldn't be bothered to feel sorry for these poor, rich, white people who scream "Pity me" from every page. Not to mention that the story is entirely predictable - I wasn't surprised by anything.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Back when this came out it got a fair bit of press so that when a free copy came my way, I read it right away. I’m glad that’s how I came by it because it’s not something I’m going to revisit. Not for the reason most people give, that the characters are loathsome, which they are, but because they’re boring, too. It’s been about a week since I turned the last page and I can’t really tell you anything about it, that’s how non-affecting it was. Rich people with lots of baggage and delusions. Winn’s obsession with various clubs and the social importance he thinks they give was pretty funny. Especially when he’s told straight out that he won’t get into his most coveted aerie. Even his family thinks he’s ridiculous. Livia was just immature and I didn’t find her as interesting as her dad. There is some nice language in it and phrases and the atmosphere is thorough, so I can’t fault the writing. The subject though isn’t interesting enough for me to return.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Engaging and thoroughly descriptive writing put me right on Waskeke with the Van Meters. The main characters are all so flawed, and all so very human, all yearning for a true connection that you can't help but pity them as they struggle with their own inner desires and unspoken wishes suppressed underneath the stifling demands of having to keep up appearances. Above all, there is a great sense of desperation from the characters who all yearn for a life of freedom but don't exactly understand how they'd live if they got it. The Van Meters are cautionary examples against living an inauthentic life, but at the same time one can relate to their basic human need for connection, hope and love.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was recommended to me by a friend. I was searching for something light hearted. This book isn't quite a comedy, but it is more positive about life and people and the world than a lot of what I've read recently! We are with the Van Meters, at the wedding of their eldest daughter. The groom is a thoroughly decent Duff. We see the weekend unfold through the eyes of the Van Meters. Head of the family Winn is having a crisis. His wife Biddy is stoic. Youngest daughter Livia is an uncontained whirl of emotion. Set in the upper class community of the Eastern seaboard of America, we learn what it means to fit in, and what it costs to be yourself. The writing style has shades of Edith Wharton, shades of F Scott Fitzgerald, and the story has echoes of Virginia Woolf. Strong literary fiction worth reading.