Finally, after a few misses, I read a winner. The Nest won’t be my favorite read this year and the convoluted plot probably won’t be one I remember in a few years but it certainly cleansed my pallet and set me back on track for the year.
Leo Plumb is a rich, previously successful (married) playboy who finds himself in a car with a teenage waitress one evening. There is an accident and the Plumb family matriarch empties “the Nest” her late husband left her four children to pay off the waitress.
Leo was the only one who had never petitioned Francie for a loan using The Nest as collateral. Jack and Melody and Bea had all asked at one time that she consider an earlier dispersal, but she stubbornly refused.Until Leo’s accident.”
The Nest was never supposed to be a windfall but over the years it was increasingly well managed and the three other Plumb children, Melody, Jack and Bea, began to make plans associated with their eventual inheritance.
Melody’s twin daughters are about to go to college, Jack has mortgaged is summer home to save his business and Bea is trying to get her writing career back on track (she is much less concern about the money). They all want Leo to pay them back before the deadline of Melody’s 40th birthday.
There is so much going on. The 4 Plumbs, Melody’s daughters, Leo’s on again off again girlfriend and several other people switch narration to give the reader a full look at the story. Everyone has angst and their own peripheral story. There is a sub plot with Stephanie (the girlfriend)’s neighbor, that feels unnessecary. While you feel sorry for their money troubles you can’t help but feel like maybe they deserve it for making plans and just waiting the 20 odd years for the Nest to pay out and never making their own way.
The ending is serviceable- storylines are closed leaving no loose ends. Not too happy for all parties but grounded in reality.
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