Title: Jackpot Summer
Author: Elyssa Friedland
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 11, 2024
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Jackpot Summer is a story about siblings and life choices, with a “careful-what-you-wish-for” message that isn’t exactly subtle. After all, even before chapter 1, we read excerpts from several different newspaper articles about lottery winners, including one that explains how one man went from rolling in money to complete bankruptcy in only a few years. This can’t bode well for the Jacobsons, can it?

As the story opens, the “fantastic foursome” (as their late mother used to call them) have gathered for her unveiling. It’s been a year since her death from cancer, and as they talk together, their father Leo drops a bombshell: He’s selling the family’s beach house on the Jersey shore and moving to a retirement village in Florida, where he can play pickleball to his heart’s content. Instead of gathering at the beach house for the family’s traditional 4th of July celebration, they’ll be gathering to pack up the house and sort through a lifetime’s worth of odds and ends.

Each of the siblings is shaken, while also dealing with the stressors in their own lives. The oldest, Matthew, works alongside his ultra-ambitious wife in a prestigious corporate law office, while delegating the raising of their son to a stream of au pairs and tutors. Laura faces being an empty-nester when her younger daughter leaves for college, forcing her to acknowledge that her marriage seems to have dried up without her actually noticing it. Sophie’s day job as a public school teacher has her cleaning up glitter every day before working on her paintings in a grimy shared art space, getting nowhere while her sculptor boyfriend’s career seems to be taking off. And the youngest, Noah, lives in the beach house, does tech support house calls for the locals, and has no idea what to do with himself, but knows he doesn’t want to have to deal with actually changing anything.

On a whim, the Jacobson siblings — minus Matthew, whose wife expresses that the lottery is “a tax on stupid people” — go in on Powerball tickets… and win. This, of course, uproots all of their lives. First, the dilemma — do the three of them cut Matthew in on the winnings, even though he opted not to go in with them on the tickets? Much family drama stems from this point.

Once the money is in the family’s hands, more problems crop up. Everyone immediately dives into spending their new riches. Laura and husband Doug buy a mansion in a snobby new town, then head off on ultra-luxury vacations (which include couples massages with gold-infused lotions) — none of which does anything to actually improve their marriage. Sophie quits her teaching job, invests in a shiny, beautiful studio to work in, then finds herself utterly blocked when it comes to creativity. And poor Noah mopes about eating junk food and giving away money to anyone who asks — yes, the guy needing money to escape a “diktatership” is probably a scam… but what if it’s not?

Meanwhile, father Leo watches from afar and seems to be waiting for his kids to get their acts together, which it takes them quite a long time to do.

Jackpot Summer has a lot going for it, so let’s focus on the positives first. It’s funny and fast-paced, and while I initially feared that I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the individual characters (note: I hate books that introduce an entire family in one scene!), the fantastic foursome are actually all quite distinct. Chapters focus on one at a time, which gives readers a chance to get to know each one, understand their inner lives, and identify with the problems they face.

The Jacobsons are a Jewish American family, and it was enjoyable to see their rituals, their family traditions, and learn more about their heritage and how it affects their present attitudes. They’re not a particularly religious family, but their Jewishness is seen through pieces of their lives that include the local JCC, temple fundraisers, sitting shiva, and learning to bake their mother’s babka. It’s sweet, and the family scenes convey so much about how the kids were raised and how they ended up growing into the adults we now see.

The dynamics between the siblings is lots of fun too, especially once the rift with Matthew and his wife is resolved. They’re all adults, but their inner goofiness comes out when they’re together, and their group text chat is especially adorable.

A few negatives, though. The book sets us up from the beginning to expect the Jacobsons to squander their winnings, and they mostly do. None end up bankrupt, but they all make questionable choices before — finally, after some obviously very wrong turns — reassessing where true happiness lies and starting to course-correct. Not that we’d expect them all to be perfect, but there’s some clear bone-headedness that goes on longer than I felt necessary.

Matthew and his wife Beth are awful parents, forcing their 13-year-old Austin into one high-pressured activity after another, with no time to be a kid. We’re meant to like Matthew and Beth and eventually their more personable sides come out… but the depiction of the hard-charging corporate lawyers substituting hiring the best help for actually parenting their kid feels clichéd. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and as with other conflicts in this book, takes longer than necessary to resolve.

My final quibble: While the chapters focus on different siblings and so ostensibly are told through the characters’ points of view, there’s some nastiness about describing certain people that reeks of ageism to me:

On stage, a cluster of post-menopausal women dressed in black leotards, fishnets and tap shoes were performing a coordinated song and dance routine. […] His appearance brough the arthritic rendition of “Don’t Tell Mama” to a standstill.

Sorry, but I think it’s awesome that these adult women are tap dancing! What does post-menopausal have to do with it? Why are they, apparently by default, supposed to be arthritic? Ugh, this attitude bothers me so much.

Okay, all that aside, Jackpot Summer is overall a very fast and mostly enjoyable read. The ending feels rushed and the siblings’ various problems and dilemmas get tied up neatly and a bit too easily. Still, I liked it enough to read it in a day and a half. As light summer entertainment, this one deserves a place in the beach bag!