by Tara Ison

In Ison’s poetic depiction, Rockaway is equal parts tourist trap and salt-sprayed idyll, where beachgoers frolic in the shadow of some potent dramatic irony: the reader’s awareness of the devastation soon to arrive across the river makes for an unsettling countdown… Ison possesses a surfeit of wit and an especial knack for upending love story conventions…as the narrative swirls to a stylish and startling end. — New York Times Book Review