Nantucket Author Elin Hilderbrand New Book Excerpt

Elin Hilderbrand’s sixth novel, “Barefoot“, will be in stores about June 6th, and Elin will be at Bookworks on June 14th to sign copies of the new book. In a Mahon About Town exclusive, here’s part one of a two part excerpt from “Barefoot.” Thanks Elin.

Victoria Lyndon Stowe had been making lists all her life. She attributed this to the fact that she was the first-born, a classic type-A personality, something her parents did nothing but reinforce. Vicki is so organized, she never forgets a thing. As early as the fifth grade, Vicki wrote down what she was going to wear to school each day so that she didn’t repeat an outfit. She made lists of her favorite movies and books. She made a list of what each friend gave her for her birthday and she always wrote the thank you notes in order so that she could check them off, boom, boom, boom, just like that. At Duke, there had been myriad lists – she was president of the Tri-Delts, the head of the drama society, and a campus tour guide, so there were lists for each of those things, and a separate list for her studies. Then, out in the real world, the lists multiplied. There were single girl living and working in the city lists, lists for her wedding to Ted Stowe, and finally the endless lists of a mother of young children. Schedule doctor’s appointment, return library books, save milk cartons for planting radishes, money for babysitter, playdate with Carson, Wheeler, Sam, call balloon man for birthday party, buy summer pajamas, oil the tricycle, have carpets cleaned in the playroom.

When Vicki was diagnosed with lung cancer, the lists came to a halt. This was her doctor’s suggestion, though Vicki initially protested. Lists kept her world in order; they were a safety net that prevented important things from falling through. But Dr. Garcia, and then her husband, Ted, insisted. No more lists. Let them go. If she forgot to pick up the dry cleaning, so what? She would undergo three months of intensive chemotherapy, and if the chemo worked as it was supposed to – shrinking her tumors to a resectable size – it would be followed by thoracic surgery in which they would remove her left lung and the lower lobe of her right lung and her hilar lymph nodes. Chemotherapy, surgery, survival – these things were too big for any list. And so, the lists had all been thrown away, except for the one Vicki kept in her head: the List of Things that No Longer Mattered.

A brother and sister running across the street, late for their dentist appointments. A pretty skirt worn with the wrong shoes. Petersen’s Guide to Eastern Shorebirds. (There was a group of retired women in Darien who wandered the beach with this exact volume in hand. Vicki hated these women. She hated them for being so lucky – they didn’t have cancer, thus they had the luxury of spending precious minutes of their lives tracking an oystercatcher or a blue heron.)

Unfortunately for Brenda and Melanie, there were things about this summer on Nantucket that had initially been placed on Vicki’s List of Things that No Longer Mattered – such as whether Brenda and Melanie would get along, or whether all five of them would be comfortable in Aunt Liv’s summer cottage – which now seemed like they might matter after all. Vicki’s so organized, she never forgets a thing. But the fact was, Vicki had forgotten the physical details of Aunt Liv’s cottage. When Vicki made the radical decision to come to Nantucket for the summer, her only thought had been of the comfort that Aunt Liv’s cottage, and Nantucket, would give her. Every summer growing up she had stayed in the cottage with her parents and Brenda and Aunt Liv. It was her favorite place, it defined summertime, and Vicki and Brenda’s mother, Ellen Lyndon, had always sworn that any ailment in the world – physical or emotional – could be cured by a little Nantucket sand between your toes. Everyone else thought Vicki was crazy to go away for the summer, endangering herself even, but another thing that Vicki put on her List of Things that No Longer Mattered was what everyone else thought.