THE WINNER

A summer among the Massachusetts elite introduces a young law student to a life and temptations he hadn’t imagined.

It begins with an offer that Conor O’ Toole can’t refuse—free lodging in a cabin on Cutters Neck, a gated community of posh summer homes, in exchange for providing tennis lessons to the lawyer who has invited him. He can also solicit other residents to pay for lessons. A comedy of manners seems to unfold, as the rich rise above the pandemic, insulated by their wealth, while the servants remain masked and keep a proper distance. The novelist expertly inserts himself inside Conor’s psyche, and it seems like a pretty comfortable place, for protagonist and reader alike. A good-looking man with a tennis pro’s physique, Conor tries to stay focused on studying for the bar exam and scheduling enough lessons to provide medicine for his diabetic mother. He’s a dutiful son, and she lives in the apartment they share in Yonkers. Soon enough, the richest divorcee on “the neck” becomes his most lucrative customer, a sexually voracious and domineering woman who employs tennis lessons as blatant seduction and starts paying him twice his going rate to service her. The sex is explosive beyond anything he had experienced, although debasing (and thus all the steamier). He rationalizes that he is doing this to provide for his mother, but he gets a rush from the sex. (And the money.) Then a younger woman arrives, complicating the arrangement. They begin to see each other a lot. He finds himself juggling the sexual fireworks with the one and the slower-burning love he is kindling with the other. He can’t quit either, and he vows to keep his relationship with each a secret. But something has to give. Something does. Conor’s seeming innocence turns insidious, unnerving. And the summer idyll, the comedy of manners, turns gruesome, as lies and rationalization lead to way worse.

A novel that puts a fresh twist on getting what you deserve.