This book cleverly weaves together five different story lines, all centered around the town of Newport, Rhode Island, and especially the mansion of Windermere on the cliffs above the sea. In 2011, Sandy Allison, a former top 50 tennis pro whose career is fading takes a job teaching tennis lessons at the local casino and falls into the circle of three different women who all live part time at Windermere, and all of whom want to sleep with him. In 1896, a closeted gay Gilded Age social climber woos the widow of Windermere. In 1863, a fictionalized version of the novelist Henry James is a 20 year old novice writer who spies on the wealthy seasonal visitors to get ideas for stories. In 1778, a manic depressive, almost psychotic young aristocrat serves in the British Army, fighting the colonial rebels and fixating on the daughter of a Jewish merchant. And in 1692, a 15 year old Quaker girl is orphaned and must try to support and maintain her tiny household of one younger sister and one slave, Ashes. Themes ripple across time to touch each of their stories: about whether life can be lived as a work of art; about love versus obsession; about the privileges and pitfalls of wealth. All of these Newport inhabitants walk down to the breakwater to gaze upon the waves, watch the impenetrable wall of fog roll up from the sea, delight in the summer days, make love, propose marriage, plot murder. I was impressed by the variety and diversity of the tone and voice of each story, which in the audiobook are each read by a different narrator. If you liked Cloud Atlas, you will probably also like this book- however, if you are not a David Mitchell fan, perhaps stay away.