Introduction

Mel, Sara, Annie, and Lola have traveled diverse paths since their years together at a small Southern liberal arts college during the early 1980s. Mel, a mystery writer living in New York, is grappling with the aftermath of two failed marriages and a stalled writing career. Sara, an Atlanta attorney, struggles with her own slowly unraveling marriage. Annie, a successful Nashville businesswoman married to her childhood sweetheart, can’t seem to leave behind the regrets of her youth. And sweet-tempered Lola whiles away her hours—and her husband’s money—on little pills that keep her happy.

Now the friends, all in their forties, converge on Lola’s lavish North Carolina beach house in an attempt to relive the carefree days of their college years. But as the week wears on and each woman’s hidden story is gradually revealed, these four friends learn that they must inevitably confront their shared past, and a secret that threatens to change their bond, and their lives, forever.

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Excerpt

Spring, 1982

Lola was engaged to Briggs Furman, so her roommates were stunned the night she came home and told them she was in love with a boy named Lonnie. They sat around in various poses of disbelief and concern, watching Lola and Lonnie, who stood, arms entwined, in the middle of the living room. Lola had leaves in her hair. This was six weeks before they were all set to graduate from college and go their separate ways into the wide world, and no one had suspected Lola of a secret love affair. Least of all Briggs.

Mel was the first to recover. “Lola, what are you doing?” she said.

Lola laughed and reached up and kissed Lonnie on the ear. Small and pretty, she had the face of a Botticelli angel. “That's Mel,” she said, pointing. “And that's Sara and Anne Louise”.

Sara and Anne Louise raised their hands mechanically.

Lonnie said, “How you doing?” He was pleasant-looking enough, with blue-gray eyes and light blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail; still he did not look like the kind of boy a daughter of the former governor of Alabama might bring home.

“Briggs has called ten times looking for you,” Mel said flatly. From the first time they met freshman year, Mel had thought of Lola as the little sister she never had. There was something childlike about Lola, something fragile that made Mel want to protect her.

Lola seemed unconcerned that Briggs had called. She seemed unconcerned by anything but Lonnie, standing there and staring up at him with a look of absolute devotion on her face. She had never looked so happy, Mel thought, or so vulnerable. “I don't care,” she said gaily. “I don't care about Briggs.”

“Well maybe you should tell him that.”

“I tried. He won't listen.”

Mel stood up abruptly. “Lola, can I talk to you?”

“No,” Lola said. She dragged Lonnie off to the kitchen and a few minutes later they could hear them giggling and rummaging through the cabinets.

“Fuck,” Mel said. “Now what do we do?”

“Why do we have to do anything?” Anne Louise asked irritably. She was sitting on the sofa, bundled in a heavy blanket even though it was May. She had grown so thin, her round pretty face seemed almost skeletal, the skin pulled tightly across her jaw and cheekbones. Anne Louise had always been difficult, but over the last few weeks she had become nearly unbearable. “It's her life. Let her marry whom she chooses.”

“Are you kidding?” Mel said. “The guy's a high-school dropout! He's a maintenance man. What do you think Maureen's going to say about that?” Maureen was Lola's widowed mother, the Dowager Empress of Alabama, and no one had any doubt what she would say. After all, she had hand-picked Briggs Furman based on his impeccable pedigree and social connections.

“Annie's right,” Sara said, giving Mel a grave look. “Lola's happy. Leave her alone.”

“She's happy now, but will she be happy later when Maureen finds out? Because you know Maureen's not about to let her only child run off with a barely-employed maintenance man.”

“She won't know about it until it's too late to stop it.”

“But what about later? What about when she cuts Lola off without a dime, a girl used to privilege and money? Can you imagine Lola clipping coupons or living on a budget, scraping along to make ends meet on a teacher's salary? And what about Briggs?”

No one said anything. Sara combed her long brown hair with her fingers. “What about him?” she said finally.

“What's he going to say? What's he going to do?”

No one wanted to think about what Briggs might do. A former prep school quarterback, Briggs had wide shoulders and a violent temper.

“You heard Lola. She's not planning on telling him anything until after graduation. Until after she and Lonnie elope.”

“And you think this elopement is a good idea?”

Sara shrugged. “It's what she wants. She's in love.”

Mel made a disparaging sound. “Love?” she said. “Love doesn't put groceries on the table, it doesn't put Pampers on the baby.” She had recently ended her own tragic love affair and now she was a cynic. The day after graduation, she was heading to New York to become a writer.

“I hope you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting,” Sara said evenly.

“I'm not suggesting anything,” Mel snapped. Not that a marriage to Briggs Furman would be a love match either, at least not on Lola' s part. Still, Briggs was from Lola's social class and he would know how to take care of her. Which is what Lola needed, Mel was convinced. Someone to take care of her.

“Because it's Lola's life and we have to let her live it.”

“Yes, Sara, I know that.”

“Twenty years from now,” Annie said, looking thin and melancholy, “I don't want to be sitting around regretting the past. I don't want to be sitting around thinking about what I should have done.”

Mel gave her a heavy look. “Twenty years from now, none of us will remember any of this.”

There was a sudden sound of traffic in the street. Mel got up quickly and went to the window. In the kitchen, something crashed against the floor, followed quickly by Lola's sharp yelp of laughter.

Mel stood at the window. She didn't look around. “Oh my God,” she said. “It's Briggs.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Beach Trip's major theme concerns the effect of time and life changes on friendship. Do you think lifelong friendship is possible? Did Holton effectively explore this theme with her own characters? Did their relationships feel realistic to you? Is the theme of lifelong friendship relevant to your own life? Have you ever lost a friend due to a monumental change in one of your lives? What do you think are the qualities necessary for enduring friendship?


2. The novel is prefaced with the quote “In youth we learn; in age we understand.” How does this apply to the book? Was there redemption in this novel for any of the characters? Does Holton's use of multiple voices and flashbacks work well in the telling of this story?


3. Which of the four main characters do you most identify with and why? Were Lola, Mel, Sara and Annie well developed, and were their problems and decisions realistic? The male characters in the novel were secondary. Did they seem believable? How were they important to the story?

4. In her youth, Mel realizes that “Life wasn't about perfection. It wasn't neat and tidy. It was about loss and longing.” How does this help explain her relationship to her childhood, her relationship with J.T. Radford, Lola, Annie and, especially, Sara? Mel's character comes across as being overbearing and self-centered, but do you feel she genuinely cared for Sara, Lola and Annie? Do you think Mel's decision to help Maureen and Briggs thwart Lola's elopement was realistic? Do you think she thought she was doing the right thing for Lola? Was it telling that Lola's final letter was addressed to Mel, and not Annie or Sara?

5. If Mel had made a different decision regarding J.T. Radford, how might her life have been different? How might her friendship with the other three have been affected? Have you ever regretted a decision you made and wondered what your life might have been like if you'd decided differently?

6. Sara spends a lot of time worrying about her children. She seems to feel that her family's happiness rests entirely on her shoulders. Can you identify with this? Do you think her feelings of responsibility and guilt are rooted in the fact that she experienced a relatively happy childhood herself, that she grew up in a time when roles for women were more narrowly defined (and in some ways, more easy to achieve)? Do you think that, as modern women, we've been raised to expect we can have it all - career, family, self-fulfillment? Who do you think had it easier, our mothers or us?

7. Lola, Sara, and Annie had somewhat different mothering styles. Do you think each was a good mother? Do you think Mel's decision not to have children was a valid one? If you have children, how has motherhood enriched your life? How has it made it more difficult?

8. At the beginning of the novel, Annie comes across as being the most rigid and uptight of the group and yet by the end, she's the character who has perhaps changed the most. Was her transformation believable? How does her relationship with her husband, Mitchell, sustain her through this process? Is unconditional love often a catalyst for personal transformation? Why? Do you think Mitchell would love her less if he knew about Professor Ballard? How does Agnes Grace help to bring closure to Annie's story?

9. As a girl, Lola is forced by her mother to play with the tyrannical Charlotte Hampton. How does the scene where Lola finally locks her tormentor in the crawl space foreshadow the end of the novel? Do you know of marriages like Lola's? Why do you think women stay in these situations? Given Briggs' obsessive and relentless nature, the violence of his reaction to Lonnie, and to Lola the first time she tries to leave him with their infant son, Henry, do you think Lola could have done anything other than what she did at the end of the novel? Were you surprised by the ending or did you see it coming?

10. Did you think the story was funny, disturbing, sad or moving? What made you choose the book? Did it live up to your expectations and would you suggest it to others?

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