Marcy Dermansky asked Marcy Dermansky:

Did you intentionally write a beach read?

Marcy Dermansky Occasionally I read comments from disappointed readers about how Marcy Dermansky wrote a "beach read" -- and it is a disappointment after my other novels. Or conversely, readers will say, this is the perfect "beach read." And then, "beach read" is a complement. It is funny how the phrase can cut both ways.

Here is the thing: I write about the things that I know. I write about the things that I love. One of the things that I love the most is swimming. Swimming in an outdoor pool or better yet, the ocean.

And so a great deal of the plot of Very Nice takes place at a beautiful swimming pool at a beautiful home in Connecticut. Sometimes, the characters even venture out to the beach. The novel takes place over the course of the summer -- this gave the book a fast and contained structure.

And because the book takes place poolside and in the summer, it has been marketed as a beach read. I think this is fine. After I do my laps, I love to read, sitting by the pool. Same for the beach. I love to read at the beach, though it is also important to me that I swim first, dive through waves, take a walk on the beach, feel my toes in the sand. The summer is a great time to read.
It is also great to read sitting in front of a fireplace and I hope that when winter comes along, people will still want to read my book -- and maybe long for summer and swimming outside.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I did not sit down to write a beach read. I sat down to write and I was grateful that I thought of a story at all -- and Rachel, Zahid, Becca, Khloe, and Jonathan, became voices in my head; I followed their lead. I only wish I could figure out a marketing plan when I wrote a novel. I know that it is impossible to please every one and yet sometimes that is all that I want to do.

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