The East End: A Novel

by Jason Allen

Overview

A tragic accident threatens to unravel two families in this gripping novel of suspense and culture clash set in the Hamptons.

Corey Halpern, a local high schooler with a troubled home life, is desperate to leave the Hamptons and start anew somewhere else. His last summer before college, he settles for the escapism he finds in sneaking into neighboring mansions.

One night just before Memorial Day weekend, he breaks into the wrong home at the wrong time: the Sheffield estate, where he and his mother, Gina, work. Under the cover of darkness, Leo Sheffield, patriarch and billionaire CEO, arrives unexpectedly with a companion. After a shocking poolside accident, everything depends on Leo burying the truth before his family and friends arrive for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately for him, Corey saw what happened, as did other eyes in the shadows.

Secrecy, obsession and desperation dictate each character’s path in this spectacular debut. In a race against time, each critical moment holds life in the balance as Corey, Gina and Leo approach a common breaking point. With an ending as explosive as the Memorial Day fireworks on the island, The East End welcomes a bright new voice in fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778309772
Publisher:	Park Row Books
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jason Allen grew up working-class in the Hamptons, where he worked a variety of jobs for wealthy estate owners. He writes fiction, poetry, and memoir, and is the author of the poetry collection A MEDITATION ON FIRE. He has an MFA from Pacific University and a PhD in literature and creative writing from Binghamton University. He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he teaches writing. THE EAST END is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

"What a delicious pot of trouble Jason Allen has cooked up in this debut novel! He's a hell of a writer, negotiating deftly the psychological landscape of his of characters as they struggle to make the right decisions under pressure. Every page is filled with wise insights about social class and the human heart." -Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award finalist and author of

Mothers Tell Your Daughters

"An intense, heart-pounding experience from the first page, with brilliant, complex characters more real than people I actually know. I challenge you to put this novel down once you start reading."- Simon Van Booy, award winning author of

The Sadness of Beautiful Things

"Allen has created a fascinating, kinetic, and insightful look at America's unspoken caste system of class, where great wealth and poverty both come with deep emotional roots. Characters bound by family, defined by place, and divided by great fortune converge in

The East End with all the friction of envy and deep longing. I was constantly surprised by the psychological depth of each character and how quickly my sympathies widened to take them all in."
- Devin Murphy, National Bestselling author of

The Boat Runner and

Tiny Americans

"

The East End, Jason Allen's debut literary thriller, is equal parts heart and suspense. Both daring and forceful, the language not only advances the narrative, but propels it forward, every sentence as compelling as the hire-wire dazzle of its plot line. But what sets this novel apart is Allen's compassionate and psychologically complex characters. The book's craft and intrigue cannot help but enlist for him a wide and grateful readership."
- Jack Driscoll, author of

The Goat Fish and

The Lover's Knot

"Jason Allen's

The East End is a razor focused and suspenseful race through one fateful weekend in the Hamptons. With taut prose and an eye for the up-close-and-personal, Allen deftly navigates the jagged chasms between the Haves and the Have-nots, revealing the very things that often bridge those distances-the hard and often tragic choices people make when they are lonely and longing."
- Nicholas Mainieri, author of

The Infinite

"Allen is masterful in creating believable, original characters-rich and blue collar. Each is compelling in their own way. Allen's plot twists are deft and amazing. With Corey Halpern, he gives the readers a perfect blue-collar antihero for the Twenty-First century." - Craig Lesley, author of

Winterkill and

Burning Fence

From the Publisher

2019-02-03

Memorial Day weekend explodes with violence, skulduggery, and substance abuse at a luxurious waterfront estate.

Allen's author bio tells us he grew up in the Hamptons working for the rich folks, and his memories supply this debut novel with physical verisimilitude and boiling emotional energy. Gina Halpern and her teenage son, Corey, are both employed at the estate of the Sheffield family, she as their longtime head housekeeper, he as a porter, pool boy, and extra pair of hands during the hundred days of the summer season. Gina has gotten good at dulling her rage with cheap wine, prescription drugs, and a masochistic relationship with her horrible husband, but Corey's "Yes, sirs" and "No, ma'ams" are no more than a thin veneer of toadying over a socio-economic fury that has already led to a secret life of vandalism. The environmentally friendly cleaning products favored by Sheila Sheffield—"a post-menopausal woman with the short-cropped haircut of a little boy" and "the personality of a rooster"—are an ironic complement to the caustic attitude of he who sprays them. The novel blasts off the Thursday before Memorial Day with several early arrivals at the estate. Daughter Tiffany Sheffield and her best friend, Angelique, are home from college and plan to get the party started on their own. Little do they know that Corey is creeping around the roof and Tiffany's father has come out in a limo for a last hurrah with his very much younger boyfriend, just released from the psych ward after an attempted suicide. So much booze, cocaine, and pills are ingested in the first few chapters that Friday morning begins with a trip to an AA meeting, which only slows things down a little. There's nothing profound or unpredictable about any of this, but what is remarkable is the author's brio in causing and compounding ever more outrageous disasters. Watch out, entitled pigs with your boring conversations and your unseasonable, bright white sweaters draped over your shoulders. This is revenge.

Fans of the murder-in-the-Hamptons genre, and those who hate the rich on general principles, will enjoy this propulsive read.

Kirkus Reviews