Editorial Content for Greenwich

A naive teenage girl’s life is changed forever after a visit with her wealthy aunt and uncle in Kate Broad’s slow-burning coming-of-age novel, GREENWICH.

It’s 1999, and 17-year-old Rachel Fiske has just graduated from high school. But she’s hardly enjoying the carefree summer she imagined. An indiscretion with another girl’s boyfriend means she’s been ostracized by her friends. Her parents are overwhelmed caring for her younger sister, who’s just been diagnosed with cancer. Jules’ illness means that Rachel’s mother can’t make a planned visit to Connecticut to check in on her sister, Ellen, who’s still recuperating from a fall off a horse. Desperate for a change of scenery, Rachel offers to go in her stead.

Rachel believes she’s going to Greenwich “to do what I thought would be some good.” But once she arrives, she’s like a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit in Ellen and her hedge fund manager husband Laurent’s sprawling and elegant home, which they share with their three-year-old daughter, Sabine, and Sabine’s live-in nanny, Claudia. Is Rachel supposed to be a guest, her aunt’s confidant, or an informal helper for Claudia? She’s not quite sure, leading to a constant sense of insecurity and awkwardness as she drifts around the house, learning the habits and rhythms of the other residents.

"Kate Broad’s debut novel deftly explores the nuances of class, sexuality and race, as well as how the events of a person’s youth shape who they become as an adult."

Rachel is a keen observer. She quickly picks up on the tense dynamics of Ellen and Laurent’s marriage, as well as her aunt’s odd and aloof mannerisms. A little snooping leads to the discovery that Ellen is still popping prescription painkillers months after her accident. The domineering Laurent is distant and a little frightening. When he’s around, he’s usually on his phone attempting to negotiate a waterfront redevelopment deal that Rachel suspects is not fully above board.

But most fascinating to Rachel is Claudia, a recent college grad who hopes nannying is just a brief stop on her way to a career as a visual artist. (Rachel and her family are white, while Claudia is Black, and that racial difference --- as well as differences of class --- will become extremely important as the story unfolds.) More than anything, the insecure Rachel is drawn to Claudia’s confidence, and the two eventually develop a tentative friendship. “I never saw her as uncertain,” she thinks with wonder. “She knew who she was. Who she wanted to be.”

Like many teenagers, Rachel is caught between childhood and adulthood. She wants to believe she’s more worldly than she really is, even as she’s regularly unsettled by the secret dramas of adults around her. As the summer wears on, she pushes boundaries, exploring her own identity and sense of self. But when a horrific tragedy occurs midway through the novel, her entire world, as well as that of the other characters, is upended.

In the book’s complex second half, Rachel sees with painful clarity exactly how her aunt and uncle are able to use the advantages of their wealth and race to make the world bend to their will. She also must confront the ways in which she herself is a beneficiary of that immense privilege, while watching other people lose out. Years after that devastating summer, Rachel awkwardly attempts to make amends for choosing family loyalty, financial security, and a desire for revenge over telling the truth. But even with the benefit of hindsight, she’s unable to truly accept her complicity in a heartbreaking tragedy.

Desperately, Rachel clings to the false hope that there is a way “to turn something around, to steer against the course that we’d been set on.” In her gestures at atonement, what she’s really seeking is an absolution she has not earned.

Kate Broad’s debut novel deftly explores the nuances of class, sexuality and race, as well as how the events of a person’s youth shape who they become as an adult. As a confused teenager who is navigating complicated adult dynamics with little guidance, Rachel is a frustrating but mostly sympathetic character. But she grows into a blinkered and self-pitying adult who can’t see beyond how that summer’s tragic occurrences affected her own life.

Only in the book’s final pages does Rachel begin to understand that she has been playing a “private game” with “rules unspoken and all of her own making,” and that it is time for that game to come to an end.