Tigers in Red Weather

A Novel

By: Liza Klaussmann

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Nick and her cousin Helena grew up in a world of sun bleached boat docks, tennis whites, and midnight gin parties at Tiger House, the family home on Martha's Vineyard. In the wake of the Second World War, the two women are on the cusp of starting their "real lives": Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage to the charismatic Avery Lewis, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own husband, Hughes Derringer, about to return from the war. The world seems rife with possibility.

The gilt soon begins to crack. Avery is not the man he seems to be, and Hughes has grown distant, his inner light curtained over. On the brink of the 1960s, Nick and Helena - with their children Daisy and Ed - try to recapture that earlier sense of possibility. But then Daisy and Ed discover something truly awful, and the dark thread of the family's history slowly starts to unravel. The secrets and lies that each member thought long buried begin to surface.

Brilliantly told with the tempestuous elegance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the suspenseful dark longing of Patricia Highsmith, Tigers in Red Weather is an almost unbearably compelling story of liars, lust, and secrets. It heralds the arrival of a fierce literary talent.

©2012 Liza Klaussmann (P)2012 Hachette

I was not a fan.

I really struggled to finish this. It was not the performance it was the story itself.

Not for Kittens in Fair Weather

This is a dark novel about longing - longing for a better, "more exciting" life, (however that is defined), longing for release from pain, and longing to possess the object of one's affections. Hence the line "Tigers in red weather" from the Wallace Stevens poem, the subject of drunken sailors' thoughts - either wanting what they can't have, or summoning the courage and energy to get it.

What separates this novel from others on a crowded shelf of beach books and chic fic is not only Klaussmann's finely nuanced and detailed character development, but also the deep sense of dread and ominous foreboding that flows through the book.The story is told through the various voices of several characters, and a series of events in one summer is seen through a different lens by several main players who are gathered at the Tiger House, the family "cottage" on Martha's Vineyard.

The author does an excellent job of communicating darkness camouflaged by sunny circumstances, and individual stories have mystery because they are only partially fleshed out, with unanswered questions lurking in the mind of each storyteller. There are some seriously unpleasant, even tragic, moments but they are not so much "told" with melodrama but rather, are painted with a highly dialed-in visual sensibility and with a fine artist's brush. In fact, in one sense the novel can be viewed as a series of set designs art-directed by Klaussmann.

I think it's accurate to compare the underlying mood and tone color to what comes across in the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, that feeling that underlying all the "yellow cocktail music" is a rather sad and nasty streak of "red weather".

From a production aspect, the book is fantastic, interlaced with with all the right music from the period, the post-World War II 1940's to the late 1960's. The narrator strikes all the right accents, specifically that Hollywood semi-Britspeak from the 1950's, socially "appropriate", formal and distant.

I'm giving this one all the stars, and hoping it makes it to the big screen.

takes you away, tells you secrets

summer reads this year seem to be all about classical living with sinister undertones, the social niceties we all go through and what we are capable of when we stop being nice, and tigers in red weather is no different. it goes back to a time just at the end of world war two, when women are overjoyed at the end of rationing and ready to receive home husbands who they've been without since the beginning of their marriages.

this is a wonderful book to listen to, rather than read, because each character in the novel takes turns narrating. events are recounted one way, and then another, and like a detective we as the listener are able to gather clues and put together the actual events from everyone's differing viewpoints.

tigers in red weather has an indulgent and enjoyable tone, amidst all the dinner parties and high hopes of the late fourties, and it is addicting to hear each characters' secrets revealed and see who will tell their story next. katherine kellgren does a great job handling all of the different characters voices.

The best summer book of 2012

Would you listen to Tigers in Red Weather again? Why?

I am listening to it for the second time. Very different from what I have read before

What other book might you compare Tigers in Red Weather to and why?

I was thinking more of the old classics

Which scene was your favorite?

The last chapter, could not wait to see what was going to happen.
I wanted it to continue to see what was going to happen to Ed and Daisy

If you could take any character from Tigers in Red Weather out to dinner, who would it be and why?

All of them

Any additional comments?

I hope they make the movie !!!

Exclamation Points R Us!!

Would you try another book from Liza Klaussmann and/or Katherine Kellgren?

This is the second performance I've heard by Katherine Kellgren. She is most definitely not to my taste - no nuance, no subtlety, just exclamation points galore. Her delivery seems well-suited to the book, but I mistook the book for something more serious than it is.

What do you think your next listen will be?

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

What didn’t you like about Katherine Kellgren’s performance?

Everything is over the top, and somehow that makes mediocre story and writing seem downright bad.

What character would you cut from Tigers in Red Weather?

I am not sure I'd keep any of them. They were all stereotypical and one-dimensional.

Any additional comments?

One of the few books I've ever regretted spending a credit on.

******** Amazing! Not to pass up! *********

I was in the mood for a change from my normal suspense/thrillers and I am SO glad I stepped out of that to experience this read! The narrator is beyond phenomenal and really gave so much more to the story line with the different accents and voices she used. I loved the breakdown of the book and how each crack of the storylyine was revealed and then later filled only to open another. The author really does well developing the characters and transforming them into the hot messes they never dreamed they'd become. I absolutely LOVED it! Such a solid read!