The Jetsetters (2020) is set from 1983 in Savannah, Georgia, in the United States, to 2015 in Europe.
In 1983, Charlotte Perkins is 39 years old when she has a photograph taken with husband Winston, whom she met in Paris, and their three children: six-year-old daughter Lee, son Cord, and baby daughter Regan.
Thirty-two years later in 2015, at 71, Charlotte still has that photo. Winston has died and her children don’t talk to her. Lee is an actress, Cord is a venture capitalist, and Regan is a stay-at-home mother.
Charlotte enters the “Become a Jetsetter” essay competition and wins a first-class flight to Athens, Greece, and a 9-day cruise around the Mediterranean, ending in Barcelona, Spain. When she wins, her three children decide to take the trip to Spain with their mother: all four of them reunited on a holiday cruise of a life time.
In Athens, they board the massive cruise ship Splendido Marveloso, thirteen stories high. Before boarding, Cord and Regan are already arguing. Regan gets an email from the private investigator she hired to follow her husband Matt. Cord has something he wants to tell his mother, but is not sure how she will take it. Lee’s partner has just left her, she was a manic depressive, and her aim on the cruise is to have fun, fun, fun. The constant calm person in the group is Charlotte.
On the cruise, they meet a diversity of people, all with their own lives and stories. The cruise stops at Rhodes in Greece; Valetta in Malta; Sicily, Naples, Rome, and Florence in Italy, Marseilles in France, and the last stop is Barcelona in Spain. At each stop, they go sight-seeing.
On board the ship, they dine each night at one of the restaurants, but it is not always pleasant. One night ‘the Perkins Family Meltdown’ is interrupted by the ‘entrance of the Fun Times Dance Squad.’ And later, ‘Charlotte was so upset about her family’s dysfunction that she could barely sit through the Michael Jackson musical revue.’
Family secrets emerge, even Charlotte’s. This is not a comedy, nor is it a tragedy. It has its comic parts and serious issues, but mostly it’s about four people coming to terms with their real selves, and being bold enough to reveal their secrets. Although this book has received high praise, it’s too much of a superficial travelogue for me to enjoy it fully.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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