The seasonal arrival of the brightly-colored beach read is a sinister mechanism of cultural pacification, and I will not allow Rebekah Weatherspoon to convince me that human connection is anything but a void.
The onset of summer inevitably heralds the arrival of the so-called "beach read," a distinctly late-capitalist literary classification designed to pacify a sunburned populace with pastel covers, low-stakes misunderstandings, and the violent, compulsory enforcement of the "happily ever after." One is expected, it seems, to pack these easily digestible mass-market paperbacks into a canvas tote bag, carry them to the edge of the encroaching, indifferent sea, and find solace in the romantic triumphs of fictional strangers. Yet, upon surveying the newly published summer romances by Rebekah Weatherspoon, Felicia Grossman, and Tessa Bickers, I am devastated to report that I found no such comfort; I found only the crushing, inescapable weight of our own mortality, dressed up in the deceitful garb of witty banter.
Consider Weatherspoon’s latest offering, a text which the publishing apparatus has enthusiastically, and somewhat violently, categorized as a "dazzling romp." To the untrained eye—or, more accurately, to the intellectually pliant consumer desperate for a reprieve from the drudgery of modern existence—the narrative appears to trace the blossoming affection between two charmingly flawed protagonists navigating a series of charmingly contrived obstacles. But to read Weatherspoon with even a modicum of critical rigor is to recognize a harrowing exploration of the panopticon of desire; the lovers' agonizing push-and-pull echoes the carceral geometries of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, though frankly, Michel lacked the nerve to stage his treatise on surveillance and bodily autonomy during a disastrous destination wedding in the Florida Keys. The protagonists are not falling in love; they are merely negotiating the terms of their mutual subjugation.
Grossman’s historical romance is equally, if not more, distressing in its implications. By relocating the mechanics of courtship to an earlier century, Grossman does not offer us a cozy retreat into the past, but rather exhumes the transactional horrors of the marriage market with a cold, diagnostic detachment. It is a prose style that shares a spiritual lineage with the 11th-century Byzantine hagiographer Symeon Metaphrastes, who similarly detailed the excruciating martyrdoms of the saints with a sort of bureaucratic glee, though Grossman, to her credit, substitutes the literal flaying of flesh with the equally agonizing spectacle of a ballroom dance where one's entire socioeconomic future hinges on the placement of a gloved hand. One reads Grossman not to swoon, but to confront the terrifying realization that human intimacy has always been a ruthless, extractive industry.
We deliberately package these harrowing texts with brightly colored, vector-illustrated covers featuring faceless women in floppy hats so the consumer does not realize they are purchasing a one-way ticket into the agonizing labyrinth of their own emotional inadequacy.
And then we are left with Tessa Bickers, whose contemporary narrative functions as the final nail in the coffin of my summer leisure. Bickers writes of modern romance with a deceptive lightness, cataloging the texts, the miscommunications, and the tentative coffee dates of her subjects as if she were merely sketching a comedy of manners. But underneath this frothy veneer lies a grim, Sisyphean tragedy. Her characters, much like the perpetually tormented, bumbling protagonist of the 2015 cinematic masterpiece Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, are trapped in a meaningless cycle of repetitive motion, endlessly circling the fluorescent-lit corridors of their own insecurities, desperate to protect a core that is ultimately hollow. Blart fell off a Segway so that Bickers’ heroine might trip over her own emotional baggage; both, ultimately, are engaged in a futile battle against the absurdity of the universe.
I will, of course, finish reading them, if only because the relentless, crushing optimism of the romance genre provides a necessary abrasive against which I might sharpen my own despair. But I ask, in a small, exhausted plea to the publishing industry: the next time you decide to release a dazzling slate of summer romance novels, please have the decency to market them as the bleak, existential thrillers they truly are. The beach is depressing enough without having to witness two people successfully communicate their feelings.