Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

This book is a comical farce of a romance, and like any classic of this genre,  the book culminates in a wedding.  However,  getting down the aisle, which only takes three days, just about kills the father of the bride. At 59, Winn Van Meter has spent his whole buttoned-down life on a rickety perch of the upper class, trying to fulfill Brahmin expectations. Resigned to the inevitability of “death, taxes, and family,” he’s a persnickety, joyless man, easily annoyed by others’ misbehavior but entirely forgiving of his own foibles.  He is entirely unlikable and the book gets well inside his head.

Among the guests arriving is Agatha, a young bridesmaid unburdened by qualms about hooking up with an older, married man like Winn--so while he is openly chastising others for their peccadillos, he is caught with his hands up the bridesmaids dress and his wife knows it.  Shame on him. Before the rice flies, there will be broken hearts and broken bones, falling bodies and exploding whales, and affairs to be wished and interrupted.

The author does an admirable job of capturing the bride’s forlorn sister in all her wounded disappointments (she is my favorite character int he book), and she’s particularly astute in her portrayal of a young Egyptian bridesmaid who regards the troubles of the .1 percent with muted exasperation. What’s more surprising is her unnerving insight into the comic-tragedy of middle-aged men, that mixture of smothered envy, aspiration and lust that mutates into irritated superiority.  Her affection for these spoiled people, her tender handling of their sorrows and longings,  produces a light but true humane comedy.