Before I get started, a quick point addressed to Jennifer McCartney: Dear Jennifer, The title of Franz Ferdinand’s latest album, You Could Have It So Much Better, sprang to mind when I first looked at your novel. I’m not talking about the contents here – more on that later. This concerns the title. I assume Afloat refers to Mackinac Island, the luxury getaway on Lake Huron where much of the story takes place. Perhaps it also refers to the emotional state of Bell, the book’s protagonist, who spends her later life in St. Paul, Minnesota, reflecting back on a glorious Mackinac summer of 2000.

Cool, fine. The problem is that the word on its own seems a bit blah. I only tell you this because your prose is so clearly defined and etched with care that it’s no surprise to discover that you’re also an accomplished short story writer. Afloat contains some of the most evocative writing I’ve experienced this year, which is why it would be a shame to see this novel marooned on the shelves because of its slightly, well, bland title. Hopefully this review might stop a few readers in their tracks. Thanks for listening.

OK, now I can start properly. I mentioned that McCartney knows the value of precise language. This is something to be celebrated in a debut novelist. She knows how to let language breathe and swell, invoking much more than what first appears on the page. Her story moves back and forth in alternating chapters between Mackinac Island and one of St. Paul’s better neighbourhoods 40 years in the future.

Bell’s youthful memories of Mackinac are slowly released over the course of one day as she awaits a visitor from her past. A storm is gathering, sweeping down from Canada, but Bell’s life is placid. She has her pills, her memories of her husband, a daughter who helps her get the ice cream stains out of her clothing, and an easy chair where she falls asleep at night, ice cream bucket in hand.

Though Bell’s life is slower now, the memories of her former self reverberate with wildness. Her summer on Mackinac is summoned up with beautiful descriptions and dialogue that shapes the vernacular into crisp, memorable lines. Bell works at a restaurant, run by an islander named Velvet, where she is surrounded by a gang of waiters who set fresh orchids on the table and fold napkins into swans. The employees live on the underbelly of the island’s fat luxury. Tourists get wine lists, restaurants, and horse carriages. Workers get the Cock, a seedy bar where Bell can be found most nights.

McCartney understands that many of us have such a formative summer in our pasts. She understands that during those times, every day is coated with immortality. Life is good; it’ll never have to change. The loves that take place in those summer months are sharpened and concentrated by isolation and camaraderie. It’s not that Bell’s life turns out to be totally awful, especially in a future that seems full of natural disasters. She has faced cancer, mortality, and the sight of her grown child suffering through her own mistakes. All this makes her memories of the Mackinac summer even more potent.

The main focus of Bell’s remembrance is her love affair with Bryce, an excommunicated Mormon with a talent for riding his bike home drunk in the dark. Their summer fling unfolds just as one should – with grand gestures and cases of beer and the kind of sex that leaves pine needles pressed into Bell’s back. For all his breezy charms, though, Bryce has his dark corners, and as the novel flips back and forth from past to present, McCartney builds suspense out of the possible outcomes of the summer and the kind of person Bryce will turn out to be.

Beautiful language eases the way, but a novel that traverses 40 years needs a firm rigging underneath. Thankfully, Afloat has a sound structure at its core, too. Half of the book is set in 2040, and McCartney has a clear, satisfying way of ushering the reader into her futuristic world. She drops hints abouts dramatic disturbances in the climate, female presidents, and the rise of the Mormon church. Her version of the future lives and breathes, and is thankfully full of mundane detail. A future where nostalgic older women fall asleep in their easy chairs is, after all, far more believable than one full of intergalactic travel.

That’s just one example of the good, careful choices McCartney makes throughout. I just wish there was a better way to sell this novel, to hint at all the wonderful things its name doesn’t convey. Afloat is a touch boring as a title. This book is anything but.