Chapter One: Blue Gold





"We hoped the house would never sell," Blais writes. But it was not to be. Her in-laws summer house may have had no dishwasher or AC, may have had mice in the walls, and may have only been habitable in the summer, but it was on Tisbury Great Pond in Martha's Vineyard, surrounding by water with breathtaking southern views.





Blais introduces readers to the house and her husband and his family. Blais is married to John Katzenbach, the novelist, whose father, Nicholas Katzenbach was assistant Attorney General under JFK, and wrote the Voting Rights Act as Attorney General under LBJ. Nicholas and his wife Lydia built the house and spent decades there. But when Nicholas died, his children lived all over the country and didn't want to pay to keep up a valuable house they didn't use. The house sold, and the end of an era was in sight.





Blais praises the house, and the Vineyard, as her third place, "a dependable retreat, an annual tuneup, a lover's embrace. Pleasure was everywhere, from the smell of the taffy on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs (who even thinks about taffy except on hot summer days?) to the weightlessness of swimming to the drama of finding the perfect tomato and fingerling potatoes at the Farmer's Market in West Tisbury to the mingling of limbs amid tangled bed sheets in the middle of the night. On the island, I felt like a different lighter person, more open, less burdened."





This first chapter sets the stage for the story, an exploration of the "depth of life lived here during the summer all those years."





Chapter Two: The Shack





On John and Madeleine's first visit to Martha's Vineyard in 1976, to his parents' "shack." She thought he was being playfully modest. But the house, the predecessor to the one they built, really was a shack. 2.2 miles down a rutted dirt road, it was only a few rooms, had no electricity or telephone and a leaky roof. But it had light, the pond and the ocean, wild berries and fresh oysters.





More family history, including how the Katzenbach's first came to Martha's Vineyard and the purchase of the Shack.





Chapter Three: Turn Right, Turn Left





Blais recounts her second visit to Martha's Vineyard, when she got a tour of the island. Here she gives the reader a short history of the place-starting with the Wampanoags and the English explorer who renamed the island after his daughter, Martha-and an outline of the island in general. The reader gets a nice sense of the rhythms and traditions of the island. There are also stories about notable Vineyard residents and visitors: Lillian Hellman, Barack Obama, Alfred Eisenstaedt, a friend of their daughter who gets a job at the Stop & Shop.





Chapter Four: The New House





The Katzenbach's built the new house in 1978, hiring a local builder named Donald DeSorcy. Here Blais lays out the peculiar details and charms of the house, and charts the changes in her life: marriage in 1980, a son in 1981 and a daughter in 1986, with details of their own first visits to the Vineyard. She also writes more about her in-laws early lives-a P.O.W. camp in Germany for Nick, law school at Yale, a Rhodes Scholarship-and their marriage, including when a hurtful advertisement was taken out in the Vineyard Gazette protesting Katzenbach's legal opinion as AG on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.





Chapter Five: Summer Notes





In order to record what happened at the summer house, Blais and her husband ordered finely crafted ships logs from an outfitter in Maine. A present to the family, these became a tradition, and Blais draws on these charming texts. There are jokes, stories, poems, jottings of pure praise and glee, big moments and small ones given equal billing. "In their haphazard eloquence, the logs attested to the simple truth that everyone's Vineyard is different. Our version of the island followed a simple script. Errands when necessary. Fishing, often. Fish: never, or almost never. How you spent the day was entirely up to you, usually some combination of swimming, walking, sailing, kayaking, biking, golfing, reading, writing, chatting, napping followed by a feast of fresh food in the evening. Nighttime: books, poker, stargazing, story-telling." "In a culture that worships the delete button, there was something comforting about the indelibility of these words."





Chapter Six: The Jaws Effect





More island history. Blais recounts three events that shaped the Vineyard to be what is today: the drowning death of Mary Joe Kopechne following an accident in Ted Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick in 1969; the release of Jaws in 1975, and a series of presidential visits, beginning with Bill Clinton in 1993.





Chapter Seven: Operating Instructions





Though they never rented the house formally, they often gave away time in it to friends. In this chapter Blais reproduces a letter from John to guests, which gives a charming view of the house, its pleasures, and its quirky challenges.





Chapter Eight: The Ideal Guest





"Being a guest isn't easy: all those hoops and hurdles that can only be divined upon arrival. Our hoops and hurdles were transparent: . . . share our passion for baseball . . . be willing to clean . . . leave the house in good shape for the next guests . . . obey the rules of the dirt road . . . write in the guest log." These loose rules are fleshed out with funny stories, including more excerpts from the guests' logs, like the ones written by a Consumer Reports editor in the style of the magazine, the "First and Only Vineyard Fog Contest" with names for best and worst descriptions of fog.





Chapter Nine: Mister Ulf, Famous Writer





On dogs, who loved the house, the pond, and the ocean. Sometimes too much.





Chapter Ten: Phil





On the perfect house guest, Phil Caputo. The author of A Rumor of War and other books came to the house almost every summer.





Chapter Eleven: What Kay Graham Brought to the Table





This chapter is on the famous Vineyard summer resident, Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post. She and Blais became friends on the Vineyard.





Chapter Twelve: Boiling the Pope





On Blais' mother-in-law, the intimidating, dramatic, wise and warm-hearted Lydia King Phelps Stokes Katzenbach.





Chapter Thirteen: "She is Not So Young Now"





Tisbury Great Pond is opened to the ocean frequently to flush the pond and restore the salinity, and the "cut" is a fun place to play. But it can be dangerous. This chapter recounts the drowning death of a man one summer.





Chapter Fourteen: "Time to Leave"





Nicholas Katzenbach's death in 2012 was not unexpected. Here Blais writes about his funeral, his life, and the closing of the house at the end of the season.





Chapter Fifteen: Great Dark Cattle





The house is packed, furniture is given away, and the years are recollected through more excerpts from the logs.





Chapter Sixteen: At Rest





After leaving the house behind for the last time, Blais recounts the seasonal rhythms of the Vineyard. Then the accounting for the sale and closing, and news of the new owners' plans to build a new house on the land of the Katzenbach's beloved home, and Blais' plans to return in 2016 and beyond. "John's father always said there might be many places on the earth as beautiful, but none more beautiful."