Swan Song

Elin Hilderbrand is a well-known author in the “beach read” genre—though she has pushed back against this potentially diminishing label—with a large fanbase and more than 20 million books sold worldwide (“Elin Hilderbrand Explains Why She’s Retiring from Writing Summer Beach Reads | CBC Arts.” CBCnews, 2024). Hilderbrand’s career as a published author began during her undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University: Her first short story, “Misdirection,” was published in Seventeen Magazine during her senior year. In 1994, Hilderbrand moved to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, where she has lived ever since. In 1998, she attended the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop, earning her master of fine arts. While Hilderbrand’s debut novel, The Beach Club, came out in the summer of 2000, she truly grew in popularity following the publication of her sixth novel, Barefoot, in 2007.

All of Hilderbrand’s books, beginning with The Beach Club and including Swan Song, are set in the summer on Nantucket, a popular summer destination for tourists. This is a conscious choice, inspired by Hilderbrand’s own summers on the beach in Cape Cod, which came to an end after her father’s death when she was 16—she made a promise to herself that she would always have a “real summer” for the rest of her life (Hilderbrand, Elin. “What I Know for Sure About Sand in My Sheets.” Oprah, 2011). Additionally, after moving to Nantucket, she realized that she wanted to write about “the things that had drawn (her) to this island” (“Elin Hilderbrand Explains”).

Despite her success, Swan Song is the last of her novels to be set on the island, marking her retirement from the genre. Hilderbrand has confessed to running out of ideas, having covered all possible aspects of summer life on the island: In her own words, “Nantucket is small” (“Elin Hilderbrand Explains”). Swan Song explores this idea; the phrase “It’s a small island” is repeated throughout the book. Hilderbrand uses the island’s confines to connect disparate characters, explain coincidences, and tie the multiple storylines together: Kacy and Lamont went to the prom together, Leslee meets the Kapenashes through her real estate agent and their friend Addison Wheeler, and so on. Hilderbrand also weaves her own retirement from writing Nantucket novels into the story: The book begins and ends with Ed Kapenash’s retirement, with the Richardsons’ arson as his “swan song”—just as it is Hilderbrand’s.