were writing this novel, it might be either more earnest or more off-putting, but in Beagin’s hands, the entire situation remains clean and pillowy, like one of Flavia’s high-quality duvets.
Some of this adoration might stem from Beagin’s own residence in Hudson, a small city 100 miles north of Manhattan where everyone has big ideas about how life should be lived — as if by eschewing the metropolis downriver they have ascended to a higher plane of being. Sabine, who perpetually reinvents herself in far-off places, leaves Greta in charge of a recently arrived pair of mini donkeys — whose caretaker solemnly tells them that they can’t be separated or they’ll die. Greta and Flavia, meanwhile, get down with the busy-ness of the bees in the house. Flavia goes so far as to invite Greta to her home, forcing her to sit through an awkward fondue dinner with Luke, who knows nothing of his wife’s predilection for female parts.