Thank you to Reading With Robin for this book.

What an interesting book. It was set in 2006 right after the election and it started with a group of friends talking about asking Siri about how to assassinate Trump (don't even mention that name to Eva). That wasn't a big factor in this book besides Eva wanting to buy a house in Venice to get away from this. Bruce, her husband, was not with her but whatever "Lola wants Lola gets."

A lot of their friends (too many names to mention) gathered all the time at their house in Connecticut talking about certain things and their lives. It was a mish mosh of themes in this book that's for sure. ( )

Shelter in Place is a difficult novel to define. Originally I thought it was going to be about a group of friends and their reactions to Trump’s election in 2016, but reading beyond the first chapter puts paid to that. Rather, I’d define it as a character driven novel, but with no real main character. Eva is the character that all the other revolve around although no one else can work out exactly why they crave her money, friendship or company. Eva isn’t an overly likeable character as she’s blunt on her dislikes and openly restricts topics of conversations to those of her liking. It’s those that surround her that make the novel.

The story opens as the group of friends are at Eva and her husband Bruce’s holiday house just after the election. The main topic is of course Trump and Eva is convinced that he will change the country so much that she will be forced to flee. With the help of her friend Min who hangs on her coattails and credit card, Eva decides while in Venice to buy an apartment. The issues with the apartment are numerous and continue through the novel, as hallways belong to someone else and the kitchen is discovered to be illegal. Even though the shady dealings of Venice real estate parallel what it happening in her own country, Eva is blind to it. Min aids and abets her, using her ‘connections’ to tell Eva the apartment will be on the cover of the magazine she works for. There is one hitch though – Eva’s beloved decorator and friend Jake isn’t keen to going to Venice for reasons unknown until the finale. Meanwhile, Eva is oblivious to her husband’s devotion to helping out his secretary financially and by taking her to her chemotherapy appointments. Bruce wants to make things right for her, although her complicated family is making it difficult. Meanwhile, Sandra is trying to become a writer with disgraced publisher Aaron’s help – at a high price. Eva continues her rotation of young gay chefs to cook for her dinner parties, including and excluding them by a rulebook that only she understands. It’s a story of those with money, and those who hang out with them.

Most of the characters aren’t overly likeable, with the exception of Bruce for me. He seems to be the go-between for everything- rich and poor, Democrat and Republican and defence for Eva’s whims. I enjoyed his parts in the novel, alongside Rachel’s catty witticisms about Aaron and Sandra’s wide-eyed attempts to be literary. There are a lot of literary references in the novel, with characters offering very blunt opinions on a range of writers, both living and dead. (I hope that Leavitt is friends with them!) Jake is the possibly the most serious in the book, offering a sombre revelation that doesn’t fit with the carefree world of the elite – and perhaps that’s why he only reveals all when forced to.

As a novel about a group of characters making their way in New York, Shelter in Place is good fun. And it’s nice to see most of them get the endings they deserve. The dialogue is razor sharp and there are great lines to store away for just the right moment.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Bad timing for this novel of the almost 1% in NYC in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election. Eva and Bruce have multiple dwellings, three Bedlington terriers instead of kids, and an impressive array of sycophantic hangers-on. Eva (who shuns her neighbor for voting for Trump but didn't vote herself because the line was too long) decides that she must have a rundown apartment in Venice as a refuge from the US. Her wealth manager husband Bruce, who is wise to her shtick, seems unable to extract himself from her nonsense until a surprising turn of events that enriches the conclusion.

There is some truly evocative writing and a few truly hilarious set pieces here (especially the one at a Lydia Davis reading in Brooklyn) at the expense of these indolent, middle aged wastrels, and there are a few sympathetic minor characters, including a decorator who is reluctant to take on the renovation of Eva's Italian heap due to a tragic Death In Venice in his past. However, it's just tone-deaf to even be writing about these archetypes now and maybe ever.

"No sooner did the snow touch the ground than it would be cast back up, as if the city was a snow globe being shaken."

"With writing, there's this notion that anyone can do it, that if you can write a tweet, you can write a novel." ( )

The book opens with a group of Eva’s friends, devastated by the results of the 2016 presidential election, coming together at her country house in Connecticut to commiserate.
They are New Yorkers, living in a world of the arts, decorating, publishing, writing, and for Eva’s husband, Bruce, finance. It seems Eva is the Gertrude Lawrence to this non glitterati group; they all congregate at her homes, subservient to her control.

Convinced she must flee the horrors that await the new Administration, Eva is hell bent on purchasing an apartment in Venice as an escape. She in encouraged in this venture by her old friend, Min, who would love to spend time there. The catch is, she will only purchase it if her long time decorator, Jake, agrees to take on the project.

I enjoyed this novel with its breezy, witty dialog and, for the most part, “Rolex” or First World problems. It is an entertaining, distracting, fast read. ( )

Very funny and unexpected, a material response to our times.