Pete and Alice in Maine

This novel by Caitlin Shetterly takes place in the spring of 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic in New York City. The city was in lockdown with bodies literally piling up. Alice decides that she and her hedge fund manager husband Pete and their two young daughters, Sophie and Iris, would be safer at their vacation property in Maine. When they arrive they find the local population unwelcoming to people from New York who could be carrying the virus. Someone cuts down a couple of their trees to block their driveway and leaves a note telling them that they are unwelcome in the community. We discover that Pete and Alice are having marital problems, the children fight with each other constantly and snarl at their parents. The book provides flashbacks to the early days of Pete and Alice’s relationship when they were younger and very much in love. Then they had the kids and the younger child, Iris, was one of those babies that  hardly slept and cried all the time. I had one like that and I can tell you from experience that Shetterly captures the fatigue and frustration that parents of such children feel and the stress it can place on a marriage. Then we discover that there are other issues that are making Alice sad and angry. Pete is a jerk, Alice is a martyr, the kids are badly behaved. I read the book quickly. By the time I reached the end I was bored and tired of this privileged, self absorbed family and was relieved to put the book down.