Jersey girl authors generational journey

BOOK NOTES by Dr. Joan Ruddiman

   In January, Book Note readers met Diane Chamberlain, the Jersey girl made good in the contemporary novel genre.
   Diane (we are acquaintances so Ms. Manners OKs the first name familiarity!) returns to her Jersey roots in her latest psychological mystery/relationship/romance novel. "Contemporary novelist" may be the best way to incorporate the facets of Diane’s books. Her characters and plots — like life itself — are multi-dimensional. The really good guys screw up and the really bad guys are likable, making for complex story lines.
   "The Bay at Midnight" is set, in large part, in Point Pleasant. Anyone who has ever spent time at the shore will enter into the sights, sounds, smells and summertime culture unique to New Jersey’s beach towns. Diane incorporates her love and fond memories of her own family’s house at the shore in her most recent novel.
   In her acknowledgments, Diane shares how, like many of us, she remembers a "special place from… childhood" and in this book she fulfills her need to "return there for a while." Her family (grandparents Thomas and Susan Chamberlain to whom the book is dedicated) had a house on the Intracoastal Waterway — the Point Pleasant canal — at Bay Head Shores.
   That’s it for autobiographical input, however. Diane confesses that her growing-up summers at the beach with family and friends was "the easy life" unlike the tragic story of the Bauer family.
   In what is a new style for Diane, "The Bay at Midnight" is told in first person by several voices over two generations. The plot moves from current time to the summer of 1962 and back even further to the summers in the late 1930s. Diane, a now-retired family psychologist, remains fascinated with mother-daughter and sibling relationships. Though the plot revolves around an unsolved, and tragically unresolved murder, readers will long remember the relationships between the women in the story who pull and push each other through life.
   Julie is the main character, the middle daughter of staid and sensible Charles and his beautiful wife Maria. Isabel, the oldest daughter, is feisty and as sexually charged as Maria, but who, at 17, has not learned to hide her passions. Lucy is the baby sister, afraid of most everything but especially water.
   But that’s in the 1960s. As the book opens, Julie, a noted author of contemporary fiction (but NOT Diane Chamberlain’s alter ego!), is doubly stunned by an old and a very new heartache. Word comes that new evidence regarding her sister’s murder 40 years ago requires her attention. At the same time, her only child — beautiful and talented Shannon — announces she’s moving in with her dad, Julie-s ex-husband.
   Julie reaches out to the most stable person in her life, the now fearless Lucy. Lucy knows how to handle Mama Maria, who has never talked of Isabel’s death, and can talk to Shannon as a hip aunt who holds the recriminations and offers practical advice.
   Julie needs all the help Lucy can offer. The wily, clever 12-year-old Julie who was a real-life Nancy Drew disappeared 40 years ago, smothered by guilt and grief over the sister she lost.
   Diane moves easily between generations as the reader gets to know the characters at various ages and stages of their lives. The parallels between the mother Maria and the headstrong beauty Isabel are fascinating. The continuity of "neighbors at the shore" over generations rings completely true. The tragedy that frames the story is all the more real as the reader gets to intimately know these characters before and after Isabel’s death.
   In Diane’s winter/spring newsletter, she shares how she researched for "The Bay at Midnight." First, of course, a return to Point Pleasant and another look at what had been the family’s summer cottage throughout her youth. Julie’s first look at the house —after 40 years — is a wrenching scene, which must stem from Diane’s own emotions.
   She shares that "Researching the music, TV shows, dress, and language of the forties, fires and sixties was seductive!" The Internet was a saving grace that allowed Diane to create a world rich in vivid — and accurate — details.
   Diane also acknowledges the support of Lt. Robert J. Dikun of the Point Pleasant Beach Police Department as an "invaluable sources of information." How is a 40-year-old case re-opened and how would the police proceed with interviews and the investigation? Diane gets the details right on how the murder would have been handled in 1962 and then what modern technology and protocols would be used today.
   Diane Chamberlain readers not only get a good story, complete with mystery, romance and relationships, but they also appreciate her attention to real life. In "The Bay at Midnight," social mores and prejudices play a large role. Maria’s family is Italian. Charles has no problem with this, as she is a "good Catholic." However, he is far from open-minded about Julie’s black friends across the bay.
   The socially driven Chapman family next door is appalled by Charles’ bigotry, yet Maria’s Italian heritage did not play well in their WASP-y world view.
   "The Bay at Midnight" is another winner by one of America’s successful contemporary novelists. For those who have not read Diane Chamberlain, start with this one. Particularly if you are Jersey bred and know "the shore," it will entertain on many levels.
   Thanks, Diane, for this one!
   Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is a teacher and friend of the Allentown Public Library.