Oline Cogdill recently reviewed Sara Sligar’s Vantage Point for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The Poisoned Pen still has copies in stock in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4cIrR1G
Book review: April is the cruelest month in Sara Sligar’s perceptive ‘Vantage Point’
Author Sara Sligar skillfully upends her story in every chapter of “Vantage Point.” (Honora Talbott/Courtesy)
Vantage Point’ by Sara Sligar. MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 400 pages, $29
April has been called the cruelest month, and it certainly feels that way to the wealthy, fractured Wieland family at the center of Sara Sligar’s perceptive “Vantage Point.” That’s because April is when the family’s so-called curse kicks in.
For more than 100 years, descendants of self-made steel tycoon Thomas Wieland have died or suffered other trauma during this month. Some Wielands have dismissed this “curse” as a myth or a coincidence, but these naysayers still suffered the effects of the prophecy.
Clara Wieland believes that her family is jinxed during April. Her brother, Teddy, and his wife, Jess, do not agree with this theory. Clara became a believer when she witnessed her parents die in a freak accident when she was 16 years old.
Now, 16 years later, Clara thinks her time has come when a humiliating and graphic sex tape showing her is released on the internet. The video is personally embarrassing and could also derail Teddy’s run for the Senate to represent their part of Maine. Teddy wants the police involved, but Clara, who doesn’t recognize the man nor remember the incident, refuses. When additional tapes featuring Clara, Jess and Teddy are released, Teddy’s team try to prove these videos are deepfakes.
“Vantage Point” unfolds during one month — April, of course — heightening the suspense as May draws closer. Themes of classism, entitlement, revenge, survivor’s guilt and betrayal seep through the novel.
Sligar uses the tapes to unearth the fault lines that run through the family as “Vantage Point” becomes an insightful character study. To outsiders, the Wielands are a solid family, committed to each other and to improving their community as well as the state of Maine. They’ve held on to their family wealth, are respected locally, seem compassionate.
Clara and Jess were best friends as children, as close as sisters; now they are truly sisters since Jess married Teddy. But Clara has been hospitalized a couple of times because of eating disorders, giving Teddy control of her money. Jess begins to realize how little she knows Teddy, who has repressed anger issues.
The title “Vantage Point” works on several levels, showing how points of view can differ among people.
The novel works well as a psychological thriller and a dark domestic tale as Sligar skillfully upends her story in every chapter.