Make Nice

A Novel

Ryan Effgen

This is a family dramedy with an easy-breezy plot: The Pickford family has gathered at a resort hotel to fulfill their recently-deceased mother’s wish that they all spend time together. But as it often goes with families, it’s not that simple.

The resort is set on Mackinac Island, a cozy dot of land in Lake Huron between Michigan’s two peninsulas. The perimeter of Mackinac is only 8 miles so you could walk the whole thing in about a day, including a stop for a picnic and a swim. Based on one’s perspective, it’s either the tackiest or most charming place in Michigan.

There are beaches all around. During summer days, the temperature is warm, not hot. At night, it’s chilly enough for a sweater and a bonfire. Back in the 1800s, the shopkeepers decided that fudge was going to be the Thing; there are now eight fudge shops — that’s two for every square mile of island real estate. They collectively make 10,000 pounds of fudge every day during the summer.

And most importantly, the island is car-free, reachable by boat, ferry, small planes, and, in the winter, by snowmobile. Once you’re there, you’re walking, cycling, skating, or riding in a horse-drawn carriage.

In the world of the book, the Pickford family spent childhood summers in a humble cottage on the island. But that was then. Now their mom is dead, Dad has become a curmudgeon — either through grief, natural inclination, or both — and the now 30-something siblings have been a bit beaten up by life.

The eldest sister Viv has just learned her husband is gay. Brother Corey is a charmer with a shady employment history, and Peter, the baby of the family, is the United States’ foremost expert on mollusks with a particular interest in snails. They’re all emotionally stunted and bumbling their way through their lives.

Their childhood vacation home on the lakeshore has been sold and redesigned as McMansion, so the family has holed up at The Grand Hotel. This is a real Gilded Age palace hotel on the island that opened in 1887 and looks like a white wedding cake sitting atop the hill overlooking the water and sky. In the 19th century, its 600-foot wrap-around porch was known as ‘Flirtation Walk,’ a place where would-be paramours could stroll together in a respectable fashion. Effgen makes good use of the porch in a pivotal scene.

This novel has everything you could want in a dysfunctional family story: unspoken resentments, meaningful revelations, fleeting romantic moments, conversations that verge on cringing and crying at the same time. The feelings are all earned and feel authentic, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s plenty of silliness and warmth to sand the edges off the family conflicts.

If bone-headed decisions made my well-intentioned characters are your love language — and if you enjoy family-focused rom-coms like Elinor Lipman’s The Inn at Lake Devine and Elyssa Friedland’s Last Summer at the Golden Hotel — add this one to your TBR.

‘Brilliant, really, how over the top the island was. Some of the dopey visitors would believe they were seeing life as it once was. And another portion, the one that included herself, would admire how the island had doubled down on the kitsch. It wasn’t the set of a movie; it was the set of a musical. It was all so perfectly frivolous. Only candy stores and T-shirt shops and ice cream and coffee. Not a single item that could help a person in an emergency. No Band-Aids, tampons, antiseptic. It would’ve broken the spell to admit that the body had needs that could not be met with lemonade and saltwater taffy.’ — Ryan Effgen

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