To my editor:

Thank you for your notes on the new manuscript. I certainly take your point that death, as a theme, isn’t a traditional beach read. And I like your idea for “more lightness and fun, and less glioblastoma.” I’m curious, though, if you’re open to other types of deadly cancers. Also, will definitely “sex it up,” but still think that could include crying or feelings of profound sadness and despair while on the beach on a summer vacation.

I wanted to flag your note about my note about maybe mimicking “Swann’s Way” in Chapter 2. Is that a hard pass on your part when you said, “Let’s absolutely not do that”? My feeling is that everyone loves Proust because, in many ways, he’s kind of the ideal beach read. One thinks of Proust’s fictional seaside village of Balbec, in Normandy. Or maybe one doesn’t. My point is, people love the beach, people love Proust, and people love sadness in the summertime. Is melancholy the new quirky? I’m sure I’ve read that online.

To that end, some thoughts on the direction the novel could take.

We’re in Nantucket. Or maybe Capri. Yes. No. Or in Cap d’Antibes. A young woman named Pippa is travelling alone. Why is that her name? No one knows. Does her name annoy people a little? It might. But she’s also really pretty. Like, annoyingly pretty. How old is she? Maybe twenty-two-ish. She just graduated from Princeton but she is heartbroken because she caught her boyfriend, Dodge, cheating with her best friend as well as her second-best friend and some woman who isn’t a friend at all but more of an acquaintance. How much sex can Dodge have? Apparently a lot. What about poor Pippa? Well, don’t worry, because even though she’s devastated, the bright side is Dodge is going to die in a plane crash really soon.

Does Pippa get a job working on a yacht? She absolutely does. If you like that idea. And everyone is super hot. Not like “Omigod it’s like fucking ninety-five degrees and humid!” I mean they are physically attractive. I would give descriptions. Which you know is my sweet spot. Like, “She had boobs the size of boobs, only bigger.” And male things as well.

Just to be clear, I’m not married to the yacht thing. In fact, maybe she’s an au pair. Is there an older, hot French man? Yes, there is. Is he dying from pancreatic cancer? Probably not, though I’m open to it. Your call. What’s the plot? I guess I would answer that by saying, What isn’t the plot?

Let’s forget the au-pair idea. No one even knows what those words mean.

Just doubling back on the whole Proust thing and how, to my mind, anyway, it screams light, funny, and sexy. Apparently, he spent the last year of his life in bed, sleeping all day and writing at night, really afraid of germs. And then he went out one night and got pneumonia and died. I know you don’t love the cancer references. Thoughts about death from pneumonia? Seems beach-read-y to me.

What we do know is that Pippa wants to find true love. Dodge wasn’t giving her that. But now he’s dead. And she has a lot of student debt, even though she told everyone that her father was rich. Which he is. He’s just cheap. Is she willing to take a job as a lifeguard at a private club? Why not? Who’s that pool boy? He’s certainly fit. But probably incredibly stupid. And he is. Like, he once asked if jujitsu was Israeli, “because of the Jewish thing.”

But here’s a twist. His brother, who is on the landscaping crew and part time on the rowing team, is even hotter. Is he dumb, too? Probably, right?

Except here’s another twist. He’s not an idiot at all. In fact, he just graduated from M.I.T. and is a genius cancer researcher. Who happens to have cancer. But he doesn’t know that. It’s O.K., though. He’ll be dead soon. But his doctor, who is young and also a former landscaper who still does part-time landscaping with his shirt off, is grieving the death of his wife. He’s hardened by loss and can’t love again. Or can he? Can Pippa remind him of the wonders of casual sex? Nope, she can’t. Once he realizes he’s gay, he and Pippa laugh and part ways.

But something isn’t right on the yacht or club or possibly polo grounds. Especially with the arrival of Adonis (not his real name) as the new head of lifeguards or maybe the new assistant to the food-and-beverage manager. He looks familiar. Wait a minute. Pippa knows him. They went to grade school together and back then he was called Melvin and he was chubby and awkward, but Melvin has changed his first name and is now Adonis Leventhal. People call him Don. (Isn’t it funny how Greek mythology and Proust are kind of the pillars of the beach read?) To that end, Don will be killed in the same way Adonis was, by a wild boar.

Maybe Pippa has a nervous breakdown and checks herself into a high-end spa/sanatorium in western Massachusetts. Maybe she can’t stop crying. Or get out of bed. It happens.

Excited to hear back from you. Kind of loving where this is going and feel like I’ve cracked it and am back on my game but also open to doing something else entirely that you like more. When do you think I could get the advance? ♦