Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

HOLIDAY READING GONE WRONG

So I started this one the day before a holiday, quickly delighted because I knew instantly — I’d chosen a great poolside read. Slight issue though; I devoured the entirety of Pineapple Street by @jennyjacksonpineapple a good while before we even landed at our destination. Oops.

That being said, I still *so* enjoyed it, an easy but not trashy read about a hugely wealthy family — the Stocktons — based in Brooklyn’s ‘fruit streets’ who all have a complicated relationship with each other and with the money they’ve accumulated, through the generations and through marriage for a myriad of reasons. 

There’s eldest daughter Darley and her husband Malcolm, the perfect marriage on the surface but there’s a precariousness beneath it that most of the family remain unaware of. And when things don’t go to plan, it threatens to come to the fore.

Cord, heir apparent to the family business, who is married to Sasha, from — cue hushed tones — the ‘middle classes’. They live in the Stocktons’ four storey town house on Pineapple Street, a place where Sasha feels more like an outsider than anywhere else. All she wants is Cord to put her first, above his family. But will he ever have it in him to do so?

And Georgiana, the baby who meets the man of her dreams but he’s completely wrong for her on so many levels. When tragedy strikes, she’s forced to re-think everything as she examines her life, taking stock of what will truly make her happy. 

Family and it’s complexities lie at the heart of this one — with money right in the thick of it too. How it’s earned, how’s its kept and how it’s given away. And, what it can do to those who have it and those who begin to see it very differently. 

Yes, it’s a story of the hugely privileged but it sheds an important light into a world that most of us will know little of. I so enjoyed it — these layered, feverish characters who truly come to life. And of course, the magnificent Pineapple Street setting, which had me wanting to head straight to Brooklyn to soak up the magic. A real summer read — whether you manage to save it for the pool or not.