12 11 / 2012
Craziness happened the other night in Swansea, and I won the Dylan Thomas Prize! Honored to have been chosen and to have been included on an amazing shortlist in the first place. Here’s a link to the BBC story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20272987
03 9 / 2012
Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize
http://centerforfiction.org/awards/the-flaherty-dunnan-first-novel-prize/
Rubbing shoulders with some amazing books! Can’t wait to rub shoulders with their authors in New York in December. In a non-creepy way, of course. Not like Buster Bluth giving unsolicited backrubs.
30 6 / 2012
Guardian First Novels Roundup
“The three days leading up to a Wasp-ish wedding off the New England coast provide the timeframe for a mordant, ferociously clever comedy of manners.”
28 6 / 2012
New York Times New Book Roundup
“The settings may be cushy, but the emotions are anything but: this month four first-time novelists and one veteran put families through the wringer. In most cases the writing holds up better than the love.”
23 6 / 2012
New York Times Review
“‘Seating Arrangements,’ Maggie Shipstead’s smart and frothy debut novel, is set on a perfect John Cheever island — the kind where old-money families gather to drink gin and nurture loyalties. Beneath the surface of this summery romp, however, lie animosities, well-paced sexual suspense and a clash between appearances and authenticity.”
23 6 / 2012
Maclean's Review
“From The Way of the World to Wedding Crashers, the high WASP wedding is an unfailingly rich canvas for social satire. Maggie Shipstead’s marvellous first novel, set over three days in a summer house off the coast of Massachusetts, plumbs the terrain wryly and slyly to surprisingly poignant effect.”
23 6 / 2012
St. Louis Today Review
“If you are deeply entrenched in the upper-crust of society, complete with summer houses, college clubs and country clubs, ‘Seating Arrangements’ might hit a bit too close to home.”
19 6 / 2012
Boston Globe Review
“A ‘strange aura’ has descended on Waskeke, the fictional New England island where Maggie Shipstead has set her debut novel, ‘Seating Arrangements.’ When paterfamilias Winn Van Meter arrives by ferry, the house smells, as it does every summer, of salt and mildew, but there has been a definite atmospheric shift — one of Winn’s own projecting.’
19 6 / 2012
In which Everyday eBook is super nice about my book
“Seating Arrangements is my idea of fun: a zingy comedy of manners, a story of appearances and obligations, assumptions and expectations, avoidance and denial — with a marvelous cast of characters, and dialogue with the sort of bite you might find in a play like John Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities.”—Miwa Messer
