Editorial Content for Edgewater

It’s hard for Lorrie Hollander not to feel sorry for herself. She used to have the perfect life --- a great best friend, a wonderful boarding school, a summer spent at equestrian camp. A perfect life away from home, anyway. Her house, a crumbling Long Island mansion called Edgewater, is a disaster area, filled with trash, mold and any number of unidentified furry creatures. She’s so embarrassed of her home that not even her best friend Lennox has seen the inside in years.

But now Lorrie’s worried that her entire life is becoming as rotten as the floorboards in Edgewater. First, she’s sent home from horse camp because her flaky aunt Gigi hasn’t paid the bills. Then she discovers that Gigi has mysteriously --- and for no good reason --- moved the trust fund that had been providing for Lorrie and her younger sister, Susannah, ever since the girls’ mother abruptly ran off with her boyfriend many years earlier, leaving her two daughters in Gigi’s (tenuous) custody. Now it looks like, unless Lorrie can find the funds, she might not be returning to boarding school for senior year either.

Lorrie’s relationships --- with Lennox, with Susannah, with Charlie, even with Aunt Gigi --- are also complicated and dynamic.

The last thing Lorrie wants is to be stuck at home with Aunt Gigi and with Susannah (who, infuriatingly, seems to accept the squalor) and Susannah’s gross boyfriend, who practically lives there too. But soon, she discovers one reason why she might want to stick around: Charlie, the handsome son of the famous senator whose compound happens to be situated near Edgewater. Charlie is thoughtful, kind and charismatic --- but he offers glimpses of more complexity and vulnerability than Lorrie would ever have imagined.

Charlie seems intent on getting to know Lorrie --- and his family is pretty used to getting what they want. But why is one of the senator’s chief advisors asking Lorrie so many awkward questions? And what will Lorrie do if Charlie realizes she’s the girl from that weird house, the one with the even weirder aunt? Most importantly, what happened to all that money that was making Lorrie’s life so perfect (or at least tolerable)?

EDGEWATER is full of allusions to actual historical events. The parallels to the Grey Gardens story are obvious, and there are also allusions to a real-life political scandal. Readers who recognize those references will feel smart, but recognizing them is not essential to understanding or enjoying the story, which stands on its own. At times, it can be a little hard to feel entirely sympathetic to Lorrie, who can seem oddly passive when it comes to accepting her own fate. But she also has moments of genuine initiative and independence, even if she often falls short of really coming to terms with her situation. Lorrie’s relationships --- with Lennox, with Susannah, with Charlie, even with Aunt Gigi --- are also complicated and dynamic. The ending can seem a little abrupt, and any happy ending seems like it might be a little unsustainable, but the mystery and romance will nevertheless pull readers in, even as they squirm at Sheinmel’s descriptions of Edgewater’s dilapidation.