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    Stiltsville: A Novel
    Stiltsville: A Novel
    Stiltsville: A Novel
    Ebook398 pages5 hours

    Stiltsville: A Novel

    By Susanna Daniel

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Award–winning author Susanna Daniel’s Stiltsville offers a gripping, bittersweet portrait of a marriage—and a romance—that deepens over three decades.

    One sunny morning in 1969, twenty-six-year-old Frances Ellerby finds herself in a place called Stiltsville, a community of houses built on pilings in the middle of Miami’s Biscayne Bay. It’s the first time the Atlanta native has been out on the open water, and she’s captivated.

    On the dock of a stilt house, with the dazzling skyline in the distance and the unknowable ocean beneath her, she meets the house’s owner, Dennis DuVal—and a new future reveals itself—one of marriage, motherhood, and the challenges of holding onto love in an era of unpredictable change for Miami.

    “A deeply engrossing tale of love, family, friendship, and motherhood, Stiltsville is both an elegantly crafted work of art and a great read.” —New York Times bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld

    “A wise and loving portrait of a marriage. . . . Susanna Daniel writes beautifully of matters of the heart.” —New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh

    “Luminous. . . . A work of tremendous maturity, empathy, and humanity.” —New York Times bestselling author Dani Shapiro



    “Susanna Daniel weaves the beauty, violence, and humanity of Miami’s coming-of-age with an enduring story of a marriage’s beginning, maturity, and heartbreaking demise.” —Award–winning author Hannah Tinti

    “This lyrically written work, which follows the ebb and flow of a long marriage, is just intimate enough to draw the reader close. . . . Captivating.” —Denver Post

    “This soulful novel will inspire you to reflect on your own definitions of house, home, and what really makes a couple close.” —Redbook
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJul 18, 2010
    ISBN9780062005489
    Stiltsville: A Novel
    Author

    Susanna Daniel

    Susanna Daniel was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Her first novel, Stiltsville, was awarded the PEN/Bingham prize for debut fiction. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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    Reviews for Stiltsville

    3.5/5

    106 ratings21 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A woman's perspective on moving to Miami as a young adult, marrying and raising a family. The stiltsville of the title was a collection of small shacks perched in Miami Bay. Her emotional development is explored as she marries, has a child, contemplates an affair, and becomes a widow when her husband dies of ALS. A lot of local color about Miami.
    • 3/5
      there was just something missing from this book. it was a little too dry and boring for my liking!
    • 2/5
      Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel is a roman à clef about a young woman who after a chance meeting in 1969 decides to relocate to the Biscayne Bay area south of Miami. Basically she meets a boy who lives on a house on stilts and is so smitten with both him and his house that she misses enough days of work that's she's laid off. She takes that as a sign to move down to live with her boyfriend full time.As this is women's fiction (and not, say a bodice ripper), the book chronicles their time together. They are married by the second chapter. By the third chapter their daughter has had her first period — and yes, that's in there too. And by the end of the book as you expect things to come to a quiet close, the husband is ill with ALS. Cue the sad, swelling music and roll the credits.I chose the book because of its location. A location can drive the plot, bring out interesting characters. Here, we have hippies and drifters growing old, responsible and I guess, stagnant. The setting could have been ANYWHERE — which depending on your idea of a good novel, is either a good thing, or a frustrating thing.For me, it's the latter. I am not cut out for reading "women's fiction." I'm not sure I'll ever be. If you are a fan of the genre, you'll probably get more satisfaction out of reading it than I did.
    • 5/5
      I just finish reading "Stiltsville". I purchased a copy of this book when I attended a release party at the author's home this summer. I didn't want to chance something happening to my signed copy so I waited until I was able to get an ebook copy from the library. I listened to the audio while reading the book and can truly say - I LOVED IT!!! It made me laugh, cry and think about how lucky I am to have the people that I do in my life. I hated that it ended. I am really looking forward to reading her next book.
    • 5/5
      I am having the BEST summer of reading. I keep saying, "This is the best book! No, wait, this is!" This was a great story of a woman who falls in love with Miami, and a young man who lives there--and whose family has an amazing house built on stilts in Biscayne Bay. And the book unfolds from there, as Frances and Dennis build their lives together. But oh, it is so much more. Their friends, family members, the decisions they make about work and life, and relationships. And it also becomes a story about love and family and catastrophic illness. Daniel ties it all together amazingly well in this readable, first novel.
    • 3/5
      Susanna Daniel takes a look at the everyday lives of everyday people. Spanning about 25 years, we get a detailed, snapshot look at specific happenings in their lives. We learn about the characters as they go about dealing with some of the same successes and problems that confront us. Set against the background of Miami, the family-owned stilt house figures periodically in the story. Ms. Daniel does a credible job of portraying the characters of the protagonist and her husband. While some may criticize that nothing much happens in the story that is “newsworthy,” isn’t that what life is really all about? We are just ordinary people coping with the stuff life throws our way, and while decisions about our children, our health, our jobs, and the people we with deal with on a daily basis may not seem important to others, these things are important to us. It is somehow fulfilling to read about others who are, in reality, no more outstanding or important that we are.
    • 3/5
      Well-known librarian Nancy Pearl has suggested that readers are drawn into a story through four doorways: story, setting, language, and/or character. For setting and language lovers, Stiltsville may be a 5-star read. But those looking for appealing characters or a compelling plot will be disappointed. Daniel's main character, Frances, meanders through most of her life, experiencing the usual ups and downs of marriage and parenting. Even though Daniel conveys the emotions of a long marriage honestly, the character remains unsympathetic. Daniel captures the distinct feel of life in a house built on pilings in the middle of Biscayne Bay (until they were swept away by Hurricane Andrew) but awkwardly inserts bits of Miami's history into Frances' fictional memoir. Some readers will be captivated; others will be merely bored. A turn of events late in the novel reveals the depth of Frances's love for her husband but it's too little, too late for a reader drawn into a novel through the character and/or story doorways.
    • 3/5
      This was an okay read for me. The book begins in 1969 when Frances finds herself in Stiltsville, where she meets Dennis and falls in love with him. I was drawn to their love story immediately. The story of their lives together goes on to them marrying and having a child. They go through several ordeals as a couple and parents. The house in Stiltsville starts out almost being a character in itself. There were times I was more concerned about the house on stilts than I was about Frances and what she was going through. By the end of the book, Stiltsville no longer even plays a roll in the story. The end of the book picked up again for me and I was satisfied with the way it ended although it was an ending that required kleenex. I think I was supposed to come to the conclusion that marriage is like a house on stilts? I would give this book 3 stars. The beginning and the ending drew me in but the middle just lacked something for me. Maybe it just wasn't the book for me. Maybe it was because I didn't connect with Frances and at times I really didn't even care for her as a person. Others have given this book glowing reviews, so be sure to check them out before making your decision to read this book. Maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea. It was a decent read but not an earth shattering read.
    • 4/5
      A marriage is made up of so many different things: history, love, attraction, and the unknowable and unexplainable. We've been surprised when certain couples have divorced and have not been able to fathom what keeps others together. You just never really know what is going on in someone else's marriage. The only people who do are the two who are in it day in and day out. This novel gives an uncensored glimpse into a marriage, uncovering everything and allowing the reader to truly experience what we never can in life: someone else's marriage and life. After a friend's wedding in Miami, Frances heads out to Stiltsville, a tiny community of stilt houses in the middle of Biscayne Bay, with a woman named Marse she's only just met at the wedding. They intend to spend a lovely relaxing day in the water and the sun with Marse's brother and Dennis, whose family owns the house. What Frances finds out there on the water, is her future husband. The native Atlantan moves to flamboyant Miami for Dennis, eventually starting a marriage and a family that the reader will follow for the next 25 years. The novel tells the story of this everyday marriage, of its ups and downs, the challenge of raising a daughter together, the temptations that intrude, the waxing and waning of passion, the times of financial worry and unhappiness, the times of celebration and contentment, but most of all of steadiness and commitment. Daniel carefully draws the small, seemingly unimportant decisions that end up changing the direction of a life and a marriage because it's the commonplace as much or more than the extraordinary that drives regular life. Frances, the main character and narrator, is a little distant at times, holding her deepest feelings close to herself. We have to take on faith her abiding love for Dennis, her friend Marse, and her sister-in-law Bette since this is not a book of grand gestures but instead of the daily and the enduring. These secondary characters, including daughter Margo, are captured in snapshots, more shade than flesh, as ultimately unknowable to the reader as to Frances, as it would be in real life. The plot is not mundane and yet it doesn't deal with the extraordinary very often. Daniel does weave in some of the terrible and affecting news of the time: the beating death of Arthur McDuffie and the acquital of the police officers in the case, the murders at the University of Florida in 1990, and Hurricane Andrew that flattened most of Stiltsville. These events serve to ground the story firmly in time and place. Without major happenings driving it, the pace of the novel is fairly slow. It's not an adrenline-charged summer read but instead a forthright look at the work involved in maintaining a marriage and facing the challenges of life with another person.
    • 4/5
      I love being surprised by a book. When I first cracked open Stiltsville and read the opening chapter, I formed an opinion of the book and was a little hesitant to move forward. The actions by the key character touched close to home for me and I didn't know if this was a book I'd be able to get into, let alone give a fair shot. But then I kept reading, because I needed to know more. I needed to know why people were still talking about this book. Plus, there was something about Frances and her friend Marse that hooked me.So while I expected a book that would deal with a broken friendship, what I got was a look at everlasting friendship, a look at marriage that survives despite disappointing jobs, loss of children, debilitating disease, infidelity and more. In short, in Stiltsville I got a dose of really hard reality told in the most gentle way possible. Sometimes, books that deal with these heavier issues can seem a little "fairy-tale like". Things magically go right, the right events happen, the story is manipulated by the author to give the reader a sense of closure. Susanna Daniel managed to give me that sense of closure without any of the fairy-tale nonsense. Not only that, but she dabbled in things that had me dreading turning the page, but she didn't go there - because she didn't need to. Just the touch, the very idea that a wrong choice might be made was enough to shock me into realizing just how precarious life can be and how fragile relationships are if not treated correctly.While this isn't a light summer read, the setting of Miami, the descriptions of the water, the house on stilts - all these add up to a read that will make you think, but still give you that summertime feeling. Look Stiltsville up if you are wanting a break from fluff.
    • 4/5
      A look at the life of a very normal woman, with normal challenges, over the course of many years. A quick, enjoyable read.I really liked this book while reading it, and I'm not quite sure what made it work so well.I think I just really liked that it was a book that was about an ordinary life-- 25 years of one. I recognized some of the situations Frances found herself in, others will never happen to me, but might to other people I know. Some things could have had an entire book written exploring the ins and outs of that particular situation, but here, they all are part of the ebbs and flows of life moving along.The book focuses on the relationship between Frances and Dennis, starting when they meet for the first time (at the house in Stiltsville), and continuing as they marry, have a child, and continue their lives together. I was going to say that time wasn't wasted on minutia, but that isn't quite right. It's just that the minutia that comes up is somehow important, whether because it reflects on the characters (when Frances and her best friend swap dresses at a wedding, and find they are both happier), or because it reflects more deeply into what is happening (Frances taking her daughter Margo to get her ears pierced marks a coming of age for Margo, but also highlights the the relationship between Margo and her parents, and not in the obvious way).And that's life. The details make up the whole.
    • 3/5
      I loved the setting and reading about Miami and the ocean but the rest of the story was just kind of there. Mediocre at best. Might make an ok beach read this summer.
    • 4/5
      Not much happens to the main character, Frances, that is out of the ordinary---yet this book is strangely captivating. The characters are full and interesting; Daniel's portrait of a marriage, with all its attendant ups and downs, is spot on, and my guess is that many readers will recognize shades of themselves in small parts. My only complaint is that because I knew something difficult would happen at the end, I found myself impatient with the pace of the book as it meandered through Frances' and Dennis' early years. The end is terrifically sad.
    • 3/5
      After traveling from Atlanta to Miami for a friend's wedding, twenty-six year old Frances is introduced to Dennis, a handsome and charming Miami native. Francis and Dennis have a slow and steady courtship, and are married. They spend the next thirty years coming close and drifting apart and sharing their lives with one another within the tropical climate of Miami. The couple welcomes a much-loved daughter into their lives whose heartaches and joys become their own, and Dennis leaves his career after many unhappy years as a lawyer resulting in his family struggling through months of unemployment. Frances, though in love with Dennis, has a few moments of weakness with other men and learns that by giving herself to Dennis, she has shut the door to other possibilities and directions that her life could have taken. As Frances and Dennis develop close relationships with Dennis' family and friends, they discover that these relationships are put to the test when the unthinkable happens and the couple's marriage is tested by ravaging disease and infirmity. In this thirty year chronicle of a marriage, the uplifting joys and devastating sadness of two people are examined through the intense and compassionate lens of Francis' eyes.I had a really hard time with this book; although I wanted to love it, I found that, at best, my reaction to it was neutral. I think it may have been a case of expecting too much. All I really knew going in was that this book was essentially about a couple who lives out their entire marriage in the South Florida area, and as I lived in Miami for 28 years, I thought that that would be enough for me to really be able to enjoy the book. While I do think that Miami was portrayed beautifully in this novel and I recognized every place that the characters visited, the book left a lot to be desired in its execution of character and narrative.First of all, I couldn't help but feel that there was a curious emotional disconnect in the characters of this story. Francis, while being very nice and mild-mannered, seemed to have no strong feelings about anything whatsoever. A lot of the time, this made her reactions to things seem oddly stale. I just didn't get the impression that Francis was really emotionally invested in anything and it was hard for me to take her seriously. She seemed to be the type of character who watches quietly as life passes her by and she never seemed to be moved by strong emotions on either end of the spectrum. The way that Francis dealt with the world around her both bothered and puzzled me, and I grew to dislike the flatness of her character. Some of the things that happened to Francis and Dennis were very serious but I felt that the writing didn't give the proper gravity to their situations or reactions. Towards the end of the book, I felt that things were beginning to become a little more balanced but it still felt like the author was holding back a lot. I don't typically enjoy melodrama in my writing but I also don't like it when everything seems devoid of emotion and sensitivity. The narrator just felt too removed for me to be able to invest in her story.I also felt that the pacing of the novel was a little off; it was hard to know which parts of the book were intended to be focus points. The author had a habit of interspersing trivial stories among the more meaty drama in what I can only describe as a strangely tangled and circular way, and everything lacked the emotional punch that I have come to expect in this kind of book. There seemed to be a lot of inconsequential things happening in the story, and as anecdotes they were not all that successful. It felt like a lot of the book was just an effort to fill pages until the final climax, almost as if the book was written around the ending. The anecdotes that made up most of the plot seemed to have no meaning or agenda, whereas the more drama-laden sections seemed to exist in a vacuum devoid of emotional intensity. I just got the feeling that things were not balanced and that a lot of the action in this book was strung together haphazardly.Another thing that bothered me was the way Dennis was portrayed. He seemed very generic and one-dimensional. I didn't get the feeling that he was a very complex character at all, and most of his dialogue was made in the form of pithy asides. In portraying a marriage, I think it's really important to have both halves represented fully, which is something I didn't feel this book did well. It was hard to care about Dennis because he seemed like a cardboard cutout and I never really felt like I knew him at all. He had no depth. He wasn't jealous, angry or abrupt when he should have been, and just existed in a sort of sterile bubble that I could never seem to permeate. Dennis was too bland to have any resonance to me, which made me feel heartless towards the end of the book when I couldn't manage to scare up a lot of genuine sympathy for him. He just didn't touch me as I thought he would.The one area where I think this book excelled was in the portrayal of South Florida, both in its history and its attributes. A lot of the scenes around the towns, marshes and beaches felt very vivid and genuine. You could almost feel the sun soaking in your skin and the salt water on your lips. I've visited a lot of these places and it felt like the author really did her homework in her descriptions of Miami. This gave the book a very tropical feel, and I felt that the author got not only the area right but the people populating it as well. Miami came off as inviting and charming, somewhat insular yet diverse. In reading this book, I felt a lot of nostalgia for the home I left behind, and although I don't visit often, the book made me want to journey back and check out some of my familiar haunts.Though this book was not as pleasing as I had hoped it would be, there were some things that I really liked about it. At the top of the list was the setting and the way the characters were enveloped by it. I also liked that the book managed to encapsulate a huge space of time very neatly and concisely. Though I didn't feel like the plot and characters were all that well rendered, I feel like others may enjoy the low-key and quiet approach a lot more than I did. Though bits of this book were frustrating to me, there were other parts that felt more authentic and I enjoyed those bits quite a lot. If you are looking for a book that really has the shape, feel and flavor of Miami, then this book would be of interest to you.
    • 3/5
      STILTSVILLE is a great summer read. I live in Florida and it made me want to jump in the car and head south to Biscayne Bay to a stilthouse on the water. I could almost feel the calmness and quiet of the waves lapping gently against the pilings and feel the warmth of the sun beating on me through Daniel's writing. The story is told not in chapters but in sequences of time, representing important events in Frances' life. She tells the story in a way that even though a lot of time is covered, it didn't get bogged down and moved along nicely. There were, however, a few times when the flashbacks were a bit long and I forgot the point the author was trying to make by sharing the memory in the first place. That said, it is an engrossing story that is very believable and well written.The characters Daniel used are all very original and likable, although I never felt a closeness to Frances that I thought would develop through the book. She is a very nice lady who loves her family dearly, but I found her to be a bit standoffish, even cold at times. That's not to say I didn't like her because I did. I just didn't find her overly warm. And even though her relationship with her son-in-law was strained, I appreciated that she recognized his important role in the family and how much he helped out when needed. I really liked her relationship with Marse through the years and was glad their friendship withstood the test of time. Another favorite character was Bette, her sister-in-law. Having lived in Florida for most of my life, many of the events Ms. Daniel mentioned in the book were very familiar to me, especially the student murders in Gainesville in 1990 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Gainesville is only 30 minutes from my home and I remember the fear that ran through the community while the murderer was being sought. She portrayed that event with great accuracy without it overtaking the story she was telling.STILTSVILLE is very good womens fiction and tells a great story about love and family with loss and perseverance. It's a great first novel and I look forward to future books from her.
    • 4/5
      ***Full disclosure: This book was provided for free by Harper Collins at their Book Buzz session part of ALA Annual Conference *** Stiltsville follows Frances Ellerloy, who is from Atlanta, as she visits Miami for a wedding and ends up meeting her future husband, Dennis, out on the Biscayne Bay. It's the first time she's been out on the open water and she feels so alive. The connection with Dennis is strong and she ends up coming down to Miami every weekend after that. Finally one weekend she moves down to Miami after quitting her job and moves in with Dennis' sister Bette. Frances & Dennis' relationship grows as they experience life together in Miami and marry once Dennis finishes law school. They visit the family house on the bay every weekend. Marse, their friend who originally introduced them, joins them sometimes with her boyfriend of the month. They have a baby girl - Margo. Frances get pregnant again multiple times but ends up miscarrying each time. Dennis & Francis accept they will only have one child.Susanna Daniels explores their marriage over the years as stormy weather - multiple hurricanes - and outside factors - job loss and potential affair - threaten their love. It's heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time to see how Frances & Dennis adapt to their lives and their love of each other over the years. This book was my savior while reading Salt. I'm glad I pared them together to read at the same time. Many mornings on the metro I had to force myself to remember to get off the train because I was so engrossed in the book. The latest 100 pages or so are sad as well and many times I had to fight off the tears.
    • 5/5
      A transcendent entry into the familiar follow-a-woman-through-her-life genre. Daniel gives Frances, her family, her friendships, and her marriage such a wonderful sense of reality; I as the reader felt that I was experiencing the ups and downs of normal life. The setting is glorious as well -- a South Florida most of us know nothing of, with the added bonus of the unusual stilt house. If you need a book Where Things Happen, you may be disappointed, but if you love to be immersed in a person and in a place, Stiltville is lovely.
    • 4/5
      Simply loved it.
    • 1/5
      The premise of the story sounds like a great novel, but Daniel drags down the story with wanderings onto less traveled streets. One of the worst scenarios in the book has to do with daughter Margo at a slumber party, Margo calls her parents crying for them to come get her. After a huge detour, the reader discovers the reason for the tears. The story about the stilt house off the coast of Miami is interesting, as well as the events happening in Miami. BUT-Daniel sugar coats the story. I knew from the first this would be a lackluster story, when the main characters (in mid 20's when the story begins) avoid sex like the plague. Given all the opportunities, why do Frances and Dennis abstain? The book does not deal in reality, Frances does not work when she leaves Atlanta, and Dennis works now and then(it seems), how do they survive? They always have money for trips and entertainment, etc. No one gets mad, and there are plenty of scenes when emotions should have boiled.
    • 5/5
      Stiltsville BySuzanna DanielWhen I first read the reviews and praise and hype for this book I was eager to get it immediately. It sounded like my kind of a book and I wanted to read it as soon as possible. It was a bit of a slow read at first. I liked the story and was getting interested in the characters but I started to wonder why I wanted to read it…why did I bump all of my other books down to the bottom of my queue and choose this one? But soon I was caught up in the events in the lives of this Florida family. Frances, Dennis, Marse, Bette, Gloria, Grady, Margo, Scott and many other characters. The only way that I can describe this novel is sort of like the peeling of an artichoke. You read about one event and that leads you to the next event and the next and the next and the next after that. I think for me it was reading about ordinary people dealing with all of the day to day and year to year events in their lives. The struggles and the triumphs and the mistakes and the joys are all wrapped up in these houses and the neighborhoods in and around Miami beginning in the 1950’s and ending at the end point of a 26 year marriage. Stilthouses, of course, play an important role in this story. It is where Dennis and Frances met…it is where their story begins. There are actually still stilthouses in Biscayne Bay near Miami, Florida. They look odd and unsafe and beautiful. The stilthouse in Dennis’s family seems to be a point of refuge and happiness for them during the various upheavals in their lives. They provide an escape and a getaway during trying times. I loved this book. It touched my heart and soul. I cried as the story ended. Suzanna Daniel writes lyrically and beautifully and masterfully. It was one of my favorite reading experiences so far this year. This story and this family will stay in my thoughts for a long time.
    • 4/5
      I breezed through the ARC of this book in a couple of days; I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and characters. The novel takes you through several decades in the life of one woman, her family and her friends. It's a familiar formula, but a great example of the genre. Also, it's an excellent snow day read.

    Book preview

    Stiltsville - Susanna Daniel

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