Make Nice

by Ryan Effgen

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Literary Fiction; Humorous Fiction

Synopsis

Sandwich meets The Wedding People in this irresistible comedy of manners as three generations of a family—a snail scientist, a soon-to-be divorcée, her teenage daughter, a hapless con man, and their feckless patriarch—descend on a ritzy Lake Michigan vacation island.

"Engaging and charming, perfect for your own summer vacation."
—Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel Nantucket

When the Pickford siblings arrive at The Grand Hotel—a nostalgic tourist paradise of horse-drawn carriages, muddled cocktails, and white sweaters on the tennis court—they have every intention of spending the long weekend making nice. Pete, the nation’s foremost expert on gastropods (mollusks), is keen to wade around the lake in search of a rare and exciting Carthusian snail. Viv, reeling from the secret revelation that her husband is gay, is determined to put on a brave face for her daughter. And Corey, a charming, handsome grifter, has lucked into five pounds of cocaine he plans to sell to the first dumb rich guy he can find.

But when Pete falls for the alluring mother of a local kid, when Viv’s daughter gets up to teenage trouble, and when Corey finds the wealthy guests less interested in party drugs than golf clubs and waffle cones, the long weekend of family bonding veers into disaster. Why did their father bring them to this cushy island resort in the first place? And why does Corey, the biggest screw-up of them all, seem to be the only one who knows the truth? As secrets spill, old flames are fanned, and an innocent snail is crushed beneath the unrelenting heel of a hiking boot. In a story that is as sneakily wise as it is absurdly funny, Ryan Effgen’s debut shows how sometimes the people who bring out your worst—your family—can also be the ones to bring you out of your shell.

Release date: July 14, 2026

Publisher: Knopf

Print pages: 336

Sample

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one

Hugs!” Viv announced before throwing her arms around Pete, smothering him in a warm, familial embrace. Her boobs mashed into the zippers of his safari vest, but so it went with hugs. Pete wasn’t a hugger, so she always gave him fair warning. She stepped back and looked him up and down. Little brother. Rosy-­cheeked and unwed, well into his thirties. The safari vest perhaps wasn’t helping in that regard, but that was Pete: Life was one big nature hike. Her gaze finally settled on the brown fedora, clean and not at all broken in. A new purchase for the trip and a bold move for Pete. She resolved not to tease him about it, and not to let their father do so either. “Weird being back here, right?”

“It is weird,” Pete said. “Familiar and strange. Like a dream.”

They’d spent much of their childhood summers on the island before their parents sold their dinky little summer home, explaining to the kids that they’d outgrown it. None of the Pickfords had been back until now. They both took in the scene. The island airport terminal was small, white, and more charming than an airport ought to be. Regular airports and their impersonal shittiness at least gave off a no-­nonsense vibe: We’re here to get a job done. This place, from the outside, looked like it might be a golf pro shop or a small café where wealthy people ordered egg-­white omelets. Out front, an American flag flapped at the top of a tall pole. A nice little breeze came from Lake Michigan.

“Did that outfit come with a compass?” Viv asked. “You wanna lead us to the hotel?”

“The hotel sends carriages, actually,” Pete said. “With a driver and everything, though I read that the horses can get you there on their own. They know the island like the back of their, well, I suppose, hoof.”

Viv punched his shoulder. “Back of their hoof. Classic Pete.” How was this adorable, brilliant dope alone? A loss for any number of women out there who surely would be as fond of him as he was of snails, sea slugs, and other moist, aquatic things. He was a scientist. Who wouldn’t want to date a scientist? For a time, Viv worried he’d come to regret being so consumed by his work, the double career of slogging around in the muck, panning for specimens, then getting cleaned up and mentoring grad students. But now she had to envy him. A single duffel bag and no one to worry about.

She tilted her head back. “My god, I forgot about the air here. I’m retroactively grossed out by how Chicago smells.”

“It’s the lack of cars.” Pete took a deep, nostril-­flaring breath. “And the negative ions from the lake.”

“The what, now?”

Pete shifted to explanation mode, as if there were a whiteboard behind him. “The force of the crashing waves produces negative ions. Which is a good thing! It filters out pollutants. Boosts your mood a bit.” He gave the brim of his fedora a little tug. He seemed not to have settled on how it ought to rest on his head. Viv was already won over by it. It was easy enough to picture him leading a troop of students on a nature center hike, as he often did in his spare time. A spiffy hat was just the thing to distinguish him as the leader.

“Can we talk about the hat? Because I love it.”

Pete quickly took it off and shyly turned it in his hands. “High praise coming from you.”

Viv that day wore a floral sundress, shockingly bright, the pattern like campy, vintage wallpaper. Red-­framed sunglasses and lipstick to match. Beside her were a pair of roller suitcases, polished aluminum ones that gleamed in the sun. The cases were fitted out with a pair of locks that you were meant to turn in unison, as if she were transporting plutonium.

Pete looked around. “No Warren?”

“Nope. There’s some mega-­crisis at his work.”

“The whole week?”

“The whole damned week. Blah blah merger. Streamlining the synergy. I’m making it sound cooler than it is. But he’s been put in charge of stuff, so, yay?”

“You holding up okay?” He meant about their mother, who had passed away some three months back. Returning to the island had actually been their mother’s idea and had been on the books for some time. The island and their former home had been her thing, and she’d been insistent on having everyone attend this little reunion. Her insistence surprised Viv, as her parents had been tight-­lipped about the abrupt sale of their former island home; kids eventually learned not to ask. Then her mom’s sudden passing transformed the week into a tribute. Their father decreed, via email, there’d be no mourning on this trip. This was to be happy, family time.

“Holding up, for sure. A bit worried about the old man finding his way forward. She handled the little stuff, you know? It’s like, he paid for that big house, but does he even know how it works? When we were home for the funeral, I caught him pouring Palmolive into the dishwasher. I had to explain the difference between soap and detergent. His fault for just now learning this stuff, but it kinda broke my heart.”

Pete bit his lip and nodded. Then, turning his head. “Is that Ashley?” motioning toward the young teen seated on a white bench beneath the airport’s curtained awning.

Viv took a breath before answering. “Ash, not Ashley. She’s become very insistent about it. Got all of her teachers well trained.”

“Oh! Okay. Is this—­can I ask—­is this a gender thing?”

“More like an I-­hate-­my-­name thing. We have entered the defiant years. Which, really, is all we’ve ever had with Ash.”

“Apple doesn’t fall far,” Pete said. “And how is Ash doing?”

“As well as any high school sophomore, which is to say: not amazing. She had a falling-­out with her friend group, and she’s acting like she doesn’t care, but she does. I’m hoping our time on the island will do her some good. It gives you distance, you know? Like, the bullshit back home can’t find me here. It can’t travel over water. Ash! Come say hello to your uncle!”

Ash looked up from her book. “Science uncle!”

Viv said to Pete, “Hope you like the moniker. For a while, we were referring to our other sibling as ‘wayward uncle.’ Sometimes ‘prodigal uncle’ or ‘struggling uncle.’ ”

“Struggling. I think that’s fair. Makes it sound like he’s trying to do better.”

“It’s generous is what it is.”

“I like that I’m ‘science uncle.’ ” He looked at Ash fondly. “Actually, I’ve got a little surprise that might interest her. It involves mollusks.”

“Well, color me intrigued.”

Ash joined them and they surveyed the half-­dozen horse-­drawn carriages, lined up and waiting. “So we’re supposed to just pick one or what?” Viv approached one of the carriages, gesturing at the pair of horses with her chin. “Those two know where the Grand Hotel is?”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “The Grand, huh? Just a sec.” He summoned another driver, whose carriage, previously hidden by the others, emerged, led by a massive pair of steeds. Tourists turned to admire the scene: this cherry-­red carriage, lacquered and polished and glistening in the sun. Its driver wore a red coat and a top hat. Pete and Ash sidled up beside Viv. Without a word, the driver climbed down and efficiently gathered up their luggage and stored it on the roof. Even the ropes securing the luggage were charming, brass grommets and all. He then opened a door for Viv and company, setting out a little step stool for them. “I could get used to this!” Pete said, beaming. His enthusiasm was met with a faint nod from the driver: the decorum of a butler who strove to remain unseen.

They began to move. Rhythmic clomps from hooves on asphalt. Viv decided not to think too hard about it. Not to consider whether it was right and just for these magnificent animals to spend their days carting a bunch of yahoos around a cheesy vacation island. She needed the week to be restful, and that included all the noise in her head. The town’s shops came into view. That morning, getting into an Uber out front of her home in Evanston, she could have offered up just a small handful of details about the island. She remembered their house, which was long gone (she’d caught a painful glimpse on Google Street View), and she recalled a few of the ice cream parlors and a little boat shack by the water. But now that she was here, memories were unlocked. Everything was right where she’d left it, all of it candy-­colored and vibrant. There was the fudge shop where she first took her lifelong stance against white chocolate. There was the hokey little island gifts boutique where she bought a nautical rope bracelet and wore it until college. The flow of memories kept on, as if a levee had broken. The flavor of root beer rock candy. The smell of hose water on hot cement. Lightning bugs. Waffle cones. Shops that only sold wooden toys. Bicycles with wicker baskets. Mini golf and fireworks. Childhood. Then beyond childhood. They’d kept the house until Viv was about Ash’s age. Her final summer there left Viv with a story she almost never told, save for one time in college while playing Never Have I Ever, when she bluntly proclaimed: Never have I ever fucked in a rowboat . . . then, declaring herself guilty, drank.

Brilliant, really, how over the top the island was. Some of the dopey visitors would believe they were seeing life as it once was. And another portion, the one that included herself, would admire how the island had doubled down on the kitsch. It wasn’t the set of a movie; it was the set of a musical. It was all so perfectly frivolous. Only candy stores and T-­shirt shops and ice cream and coffee. Not a single item that could help a person in an emergency. No Band-­Aids, tampons, antiseptic. It would’ve broken the spell to admit that the body had needs that could not be met with lemonade and saltwater taffy. She had lied about her husband’s work. They’d been having problems. Or, rather, a single, mountain-­size problem, and the one thing she and Warren could agree on is that they needed some space. If she’d had her druthers, she would be off in wine country with a college friend. But the timing was what it was, and so now she was getting carted along by a pair of horses down Main Street. Of course it was called Main Street. Viv picked out the horse scents. Breath. Hair. A faint whiff of manure—­not enough to be repulsive. Just enough to confirm the presence of a living thing. Reassuring, in a way.

“We shall not want for fudge,” she said. Joann’s Fudge. May’s Fudge. Murdick’s Fudge. “Ash, give the book a rest for two seconds and look around!”

Ash complied, resting a colorful Japanese graphic novel on the knees of her fuzzy pajama pants. She and her friends had never fully come out of quarantine. She raised her chin. “This town smells like funnel cake.”

“They have a Starbucks now,” Pete pointed out. It was retrofitted into a cozy storefront, the corporate mermaid hand-­carved into a round wooden shingle that hung from a wrought-­iron signpost. Viv snapped a photo so she could text it to Warren. They had a thing for quaint-­ified corporate storefronts. Ye olde Targets and such. She thought for a moment, then deleted the photo. Another cyclist passed the carriage, giving a chirpy little ring-­ring from her bicycle bell. Everyone on the street seemed like movie extras, entering Viv’s field of vision on cue. The carriage briefly halted at an intersection so another carriage could pass. An elderly couple sat on a bench, eating ice cream out of oversize waffle cones. “I guess we were too young to really question what this place even is. But what is it?” she asked no one in particular. “A carnival without rides? A beach town without an ocean? A colonial village without the history?”

The driver spoke up. “Many visitors want to know where all the cars are.” He seemed disappointed that no one had asked. “The island has been car-­free since 1898, just a few years after the arrival of the horseless carriage, as we like to call it. Of course, the island does have a few emergency vehicles. Police, fire, ambulance, naturally.”

“Do they have names?” Ash asked loudly.

“What was that?” the driver politely asked.

“The horses. They got names?”

Her question pleased the driver. “Edwin and Hans. Hans is named after Clever Hans, a horse who was famous for his skills with arithmetic. His owner would challenge him with addition and subtraction problems, and Clever Hans would provide the correct answer with stomps of his hoof.”

“That was fake, though,” Ash said.

The driver turned around on his little seat. “Very good! It did turn out to be a bit of chicanery.”

“Your horse is named after a liar.”

“Ash.” Viv and Pete tightened their lips to stifle laughter.

The driver transitioned back to being unseen.

“Probably the cleverest animal, not counting primates, is the octopus,” Pete said brightly. “Easily the cleverest mollusk, in any case.”

Neither Viv nor Ash had anything to say to that. Ash was back to her book. Viv watched Pete watching Ash. Meeting up with family had an effect on Viv. Her husband and child and day-­to-­day existence—­that was everything, that was the entire world. But then a sibling came into view, and suddenly she felt seen. She would view her own life through his eyes, and it all shrank. Her life was no longer the entire world but a niche little museum she’d been curating. Here’s where we display our child’s current phase. And in this wing, we keep the husband. He’s part of the permanent collection.