SUPER-FUN ROMANTIC SEXY BEACH READ

To my editor:Thank you for your notes on the new manuscript. I certainly take your point that death, as a theme, isn't a traditional beach read. And I like your idea for "more lightness and fun, and less glioblastoma." I'm curious, though, if you're open to other types of deadly cancers. Also, will definitely "sex it up," but still think that could include crying or feelings of profound sadness and despair while on the beach on a summer vacation.

- JOHN KENNEY

I wanted to flag your note about my note about maybe mimicking "Swann's Way" in Chapter 2. Is that a hard pass on your part when you said, "Let's absolutely not do that"? My feeling is that everyone loves Proust because, in many ways, he's kind of the ideal beach read. One thinks of Proust's fictional seaside village of Balbec, in Normandy. Or maybe one doesn't. My point is, people love the beach, people love Proust, and people love sadness in the summertime. Is melancholy the new quirky? I'm sure I've read that online.

To that end, some thoughts on the direction the novel could take.

We're in Nantucket. Or maybe Capri. Yes. No. Or in Cap d'Antibes. A young woman named Pippa is travelling alone. Why is that her name? No one knows. Does her name annoy people a little? It might. But she's also really pretty. Like, annoyingly pretty. How old is she? Maybe twenty-two-ish. She just graduated from Princeton but she is heartbroken because she caught her boyfriend, Dodge, cheating with her best friend as well as her second-best friend and some woman who isn't a friend at all but more of an acquaintance. How much sex can Dodge have? Apparently a lot. What about poor Pippa? Well, don't worry, because even though she's devastated, the bright side is Dodge is going to die in a plane crash really soon.