Book Review of Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead: A Beautiful Wedding Full of Terrible Behavior
There’s something wonderfully entertaining about a novel where almost everyone is dressed nicely, drinking champagne, standing in a beautiful location—and making absolutely terrible choices.
That’s Seating Arrangements.
Maggie Shipstead’s debut novel takes place over a three-day wedding weekend on the fictional New England island of Waskeke, where the wealthy Van Meter family has gathered for daughter Daphne’s wedding. Beneath the polished surface are jealousy, class anxiety, infidelity, heartbreak, resentment, and a great deal of alcohol.
Basically, it’s the ideal wedding guest list.
What is Seating Arrangements about?
Daphne Van Meter is getting married.
Her mother, Biddy, has planned everything meticulously.
The family has gathered at their island retreat.
The champagne is flowing.
Everything should be perfect.
Except Daphne’s father, Winn, is consumed by the fact that an exclusive island club still hasn’t admitted him.
He’s also developing a very inappropriate interest in one of his daughter’s bridesmaids.
Meanwhile, Daphne’s younger sister Livia is recovering from heartbreak and making questionable choices of her own.
Then add old rivalries, romantic disasters, a beached whale, an escaped lobster, and a group of privileged people increasingly losing control of themselves.
This isn’t really about the wedding
The wedding provides the structure, but Seating Arrangements is really about dissatisfaction.
These are people who, from the outside, appear to have won.
Money.
Education.
Beautiful homes.
Social connections.
Prestige.
And yet they’re constantly looking at someone else’s life and wondering whether they’ve somehow ended up with the wrong one.
Winn is particularly fascinating because he has almost everything he was taught to want and is still deeply insecure.
A social satire with teeth
Shipstead is very good at observing status.
Who belongs.
Who doesn’t.
Who went to which school.
Who’s admitted to which club.
Who married whom.
Which families matter.
The distinctions are ridiculous—and incredibly important to the people living within them.
That’s where much of the humor comes from.
Everyone is performing this polished version of upper-class respectability while their actual lives are falling apart underneath it.
A great summer setting
For all the dysfunction, this is also an incredibly summery book.
Island houses.
Salt air.
Wedding clothes.
Champagne.
Boats.
Long summer days.
It’s basically a beach read about people who own much nicer beach houses than the rest of us.
Final thoughts
Seating Arrangements proves that sometimes the most entertaining fictional weddings are the ones you would absolutely hate to attend in real life.
Almost everyone is behaving badly.
Several people desperately need therapy.
The wedding weekend is slowly spinning out of control.
And Maggie Shipstead watches all of it with a wonderfully sharp eye.
If you enjoy literary fiction about wealthy families, social satire, complicated marriages, and beautiful people making ugly decisions, this is a fun summer read.
