Beach Reading

A genre-blending exploration of “beach reading” – the category, the activity, and the artists who shaped our understanding of the beaches we love

Beset with midlife malaise, Sari Edelstein turns to American literature to discover what women of the past did to combat the “damp, drizzly November of the soul.” How, she wondered, do we bring ourselves back to life when we’re stuck in the doldrums?

She quickly discovered a pattern: women went to the beach. They went alone to collect seaweed and commune with piping plovers; they went with their lovers; they went to write and drink and live radical unscripted lives; and they went to protest. Edelstein came to realize there was an untold story of the beach: a literary tradition and a network of women who imagined, narrated, and sought to preserve the seashore.

From Kate Chopin’s The Awakening to Elin Hilderbrand’s modern empire of beach read classics, Beach Reading explores the evolution of a beloved category of literature, often dismissed as frivolous. Edelstein instead takes these books seriously and also expands our understanding of the genre, revealing the beach as an overlooked but important site of creativity and community. Charting the cultural history of the beach as a cherished destination, Beach Reading visits elite island retreats, Black-owned seaside resorts, and queer sanctuaries like Provincetown, and considers the literature and art that arose from these places.

This book tells the story of how women transformed the beach into a space of fantasy, community, and activism. Through their literature, art, and lived example, they modeled for each other—and future generations—how to inhabit this ever-shifting realm outside the home and inspired new ideas and forms of consciousness. Blending memoir, archival research, and literary and cultural analysis, Sari Edelstein traces how the shoreline became a site of freedom, pleasure, and possibility.