Osprey Island

By Thisbe Nissen

As summer begins on Osprey Island, preparations at the Lodge -- the island’s one and only hotel — are underway for the busy season. On maintenance and housekeeping there’s Lance and Lorna Squire, Osprey locals and raging drinkers; and their irrepressible son Squee. There are college boys to wait tables and Irish girls to clean rooms. And a few unusual returnees, too: Suzy Chizek, single mom and daughter of the Lodge’s owners, who’s looking for a parentally funded vacation; and Roddy Jacobs, another former local, who has come back after a mysterious twenty-year absence. But when tragedy strikes, dark secrets explode, dividing the island community over the fate of a young boy suddenly more vulnerable to his violent father than ever. In the uniquely ephemeral atmosphere of a summer resort, Thisbe Nissen unfolds, with charecteristic warmth and charm, an ever-deepening story of lost loves and found romance, of loyalties and betrayals; and of lingering–sometimes fleeting–joy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 18, 2007
• ISBN: 9780307427175

Thisbe Nissen

THISBE NISSEN is the author of a story collection, Out of the Girls’ Room and into the Night, and two novels, The Good People of New York and Osprey Island. Her fiction has been published in the Iowa Review and the American Scholar, among others, and her nonfiction has appeared in Vogue, Glamour, and elsewhere. She teaches at Western Michigan University and lives in Battle Creek, Michigan, with her husband, writer Jay Baron Nicorvo, and their son.  

Reviews for Osprey Island

[allison7sivak · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This novel follows the inhabitants of a small East-Coast island, a tourist destination in summer and a slow local hamlet during all other seasons. Centred around the Osprey Island Lodge, the book begins with the illustration of several dysfunctional small-town characters: Suzy Chizek, a single mother whose parents Bud and Nancy own the lodge, and who has come back for the summer to work; Roddy Jacobs, recently returned to live on the island with his eccentric mother Eden after having stayed away for almost 20 years; Lorna and Lance Squire, the drunken and volatile couple who are at best, neglectful to their 8-year-old son Squee, and at worst, abusive to him.The stage is set for tragedy, and it happens when Lorna dies in a laundry room fire she has accidentally set while drunk. The remainder of the book (which I must confess I skimmed, but didn't read) follows the events that unfold, and reveals the secrets held by each of these characters. And the secrets are easily as dramatic as the characters' lives: rape, affairs between a teenage girl and a respected island resident, pregnancies, abortions obtained through one of the islanders. With such a density of scandal, it is ironic that the characters are at best portrayed as two-dimensional. There are essential characteristics that each carries, and they do not fundamentally change as people; Suzy's bad relationship with her father isn't just due to old misunderstandings but because her father is a Bad Man who has done Bad Things. Eden Jacobs is a principled old hippie, who responds to all situations with the most ethical action possible. The island itself is made into a mysterious place that residents can't leave -- but for which they will suffer greatly. This all results in a stiff reading experience, and I stopped reading part way through to skip ahead and find out the plot intrigues. The writing is clear and imagistic, but the description is often misplaced; for example, when Lorna, recovering from a hangover on a sunny morning, wishes "the light were like the stiffness of a new pair of shoes, and she closed her eyes and tried to imagine breaking it in." This passage continues tracing Lorna's thoughts, which are so blunt in their metaphor they read false, particularly for a character who is so self-deceptive: "Squee belonged in the light, an angel child [...] To stay with Squee in the sun she'd have to vow never to take another drink. Never look at Lance again, b ecause Lance was darkness, and Lorna's dream of light ended with him." The book reads as if it were an earlier draft with some cosmetic polishing; it would have been stronger and subtler with another rewrite.

[paisley1974 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this better than "The Good People of New York"--it seemed better constructed. It's a good summer novel.