Sunbathing

A mother and daughter unpack their emotional baggage on vacation in this entertaining and profoundly moving debut novel about self-discovery, reinvention, and the connections that grow in the wake of loss

Now they were on the trip in the future they couldn’t imagine, and Alice was facing three days in paradise with her meddlesome daughter and a strange, new intolerance for her meddling.

Twenty-something Lola and her mother, Alice, never expected to find themselves at an all-inclusive resort in Cancún. But they also never imagined their lives without Burt, the father and husband they lost to early-onset dementia just over a year ago. La Mer—with its buffets, beachfront bars, and smiling staff—promises to be a welcome, restorative retreat.

In close quarters, though, even a resort’s worth of manufactured diversions can’t keep their old neuroses and new frustrations at bay. Their fellow guests are obnoxious. The lagoon outside their room might be crocodile-infested. And the secrets they’ve been harboring from each other grow harder to ignore by the day. But they’re intrigued by their run-ins with the charmingly disaffected Diego—hotel employee by day and frustrated writer by night—whose disarming presence quickly becomes more meaningful to them than either is prepared to admit.  

Flush with the energy of this endearing, fish-out-of-water duo, and deeply attuned to the intricacies of mother-daughter relationships, Sunbathing is a sharp, emotionally resonant, and memorable exploration of the surprising possibilities and transformations that find us at every age.