The Rocks
Peter Nichols, 2015
Penguin Books
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594633317
Summary
A romantic page-turner propelled by the sixty-year secret that has shaped two families, four lovers, and one seaside resort community.
Set against dramatic Mediterranean Sea views and lush olive groves, The Rocks opens with a confrontation and a secret: What was the mysterious, catastrophic event that drove two honeymooners apart so suddenly and absolutely in 1948 that they never spoke again despite living on the same island for sixty more years?
And how did their history shape the Romeo and Juliet–like romance of their (unrelated) children decades later? Centered around a popular seaside resort club and its community, The Rocks is a double love story that begins with a mystery, then moves backward in time, era by era, to unravel what really happened decades earlier.
Peter Nichols writes with a pervading, soulful wisdom and self-knowing humor, and captures perfectly this world of glamorous, complicated, misbehaving types with all their sophisticated flaws and genuine longing.
The result is a bittersweet, intelligent, and romantic novel about how powerful the perceived truth can be—as a bond, and as a barrier—even if it’s not really the whole story; and how one misunderstanding can echo irreparably through decades. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Peter Nichols has worked in advertising and as a screenwriter and a shepherd in Wales, and he has sailed alone across the Atlantic. He divides his time between Europe and the United States. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Rocks is a tragic double romance, told in reverse, primarily set on Mallorca. Superficially, it's a sort of mash-up of Jim Crace's Being Dead and Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins. It begins in 2005 and runs back through time all the way to 1948, retracing the events precipitated by the novel's "inciting incident," whose final repercussion opens the book. This might sound confusing, but it isn't, because Nichols has a firm grasp of the chronology and a clear sense of control over the novel's trajectory and purpose: to illuminate the wreckage of romantic love and the end of a marriage, and, finally, to reveal the mystery at the heart of its death.
Kate Christensen - New York Times Book Review
Mr. Nichols takes the reader on a 400-page odyssey that includes a crooked real-estate deal, a hair-raising drug run in Morocco and enough sexual encounters to keep the summer beach reader breathlessly turning the page. Throughout it all, Mr. Nichols’s writing is witty and erudite.
Wall Street Journal
It’s the perfect beach read, with romance, mystery, humor, and drama all set on a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea.
Boston Globe
We hear the rueful hum of real life, full of possibilities seized but mostly missed. And we grow wealthier by the page.
USA Today
[What] smart, sexy summer lit is invariably made of.... The Rocks has all the requisite romance and intrigue of good melodrama—and its settings are so postcard-gorgeous you can almost taste the sea spray and cold horchata—but there’s real wit and substance in his storytelling. Think of it as a beach read you’ll respect in the morning.
Entertainment Weekly
This page-turner will transport readers to the sunny community of expats at a glamorous seaside resort, where mystery, love, and family legacy are all fiercely intertwined.
Harper's Bazaar
[The Rocks is] constructed to keep the reader guessing..... So we keep turning the pages not to discover what will happen, but to find out what has already occurred. Along the way, there are sumptuous lunches served on yachts, exotic couples met while traveling in Morocco, older women seducing much younger men.
Oprah Magazine
(Starred review.) [T]wo central stories engage the readers’ sympathies and emotions, while Nichols colors in the background with the...louche exploits of the careless adults and the tanned teenagers who...have a harder time growing up beyond the endless summer.
Publishers Weekly
The problem is that Lulu is mostly unlikable....there's something disturbed about Lulu.... [R]eaders hoping for [a] winsome, humorous, hopeful love story will be disappointed. Nichols has written more of a tragedy, with the only glimmer of light coming in the final pages. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Nichols deftly melds comedy and compassion, and his rendering of his Mediterranean setting will have readers packing their bags.
Booklist
(Starred review.) As intoxicating as a long afternoon sitting at the bar at The Rocks.... All of it is absolutely riveting, leaving the reader desperate to depart immediately for swoony Mallorca.... Nichols' expertise on everything from the Odyssey to olive oil to classic movies enriches the story, as does his profound understanding of his screwed-up cast of characters.... A literary island vacation with a worldly, wonderfully salacious storyteller.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Rocks is a novel that experiments with the chronology of storytelling, unfurling backward through time. What did you think about the way that time was handled in the narrative? Did it affect the way you related to the story and characters? Did it make the story feel more—or less—propulsive?
2. Consider the parallel relationships between Aegina and Luc, Lulu and Gerald. How are these two relationships similar, and how they are different? To what degree is Aegina and Luc’s relationship shaped by the dynamic between their parents?
3. How did you interpret the ending with Luc and Aegina? Was it clear or ambiguous? Light or dark? How did you feel about the author’s decisions there?
4. From the beginning of the book we understand that there is a secret at the foundation of Lulu and Gerald’s split, and that it may be based on a tragic misunderstanding. The book then spirals backward through time to get to that past secret. Were you surprised when you found out the truth? Was it what you expected? Were you satisfied?
5. The book covers sixty years of life on the island of Mallorca. What changes do we see on the island over this time? How are they reflected in the people who live and visit there? Do you see reciprocal changes between the island and the people? That is, do the people change the island, or does the island change the people? In what ways?
6. What do you think the author is saying about expat culture and the people who build lives outside of their home countries? Discuss the positive and negative outcomes of such a decision.
7. Consider the cultural knowledge the book imparts—about the Odyssey, olive oil production, classic films and Hollywood… What can we learn about other parts of the world from the specific details the author brings to the page? How can reading a book like The Rocks inform us about cultural norms, traditions, and expectations?
8. Peter Nichols is an American who went to school in England and spent summers on Mallorca with his family. Since then he has lived all over the world and held a variety of jobs. After a successful career as a nonfiction writer, he turned to fiction and The Rocks. How do you think the author’s experience and biography may have shaped this book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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