Seating Arrangements

A very satisfying read: a cross between Lucky Jim and A Cheerful Day for a Wedding. A WASP-y wedding weekend on  New England island with multiple unpleasant characters bumping off each other. Shipstead has a lovely way with language: a character watches another with "a knife-and-fork-sharpening look of sexual appraisal", an old woman is complaining about the cold in the rehearsal dinner and Winn Van Meter, the bride's family's patriarch tells her "maybe you feel the chill of approaching death."  Tee hee.