My writing studio is on the second floor of our home, and its windows look out into a thicket of trees. From this perch, I see neither trunk nor top crown. Instead, I stare at the full and breathing middle of things. The canopy, the roots are out of sight. I witness a mayhem of limb and leaf, and a lot of birds and raindrops and maybe a rat snake, too. From this seat, I carry the half-formed thought that the trees might go on and on, and endlessly, disappearing into the sky. Which is to say, I succumb to the fallacy of perspective, the notion that whatever is in the viewfinder is the full or the forever.
Listen, we never have the full picture. We are always looking at the middle of something.
So accept these full and forgiving branches. Come see what they have to tell you about bending in the wind, and drawing light from the far off places, and accommodating change in the seasons, and sheltering other beloved life forms from the fitfulness of the weather. There is a lot to love in this heavy-branched center.
+Alice Walk just restocked their gauze collection and I love these shorts — own in white and great for pulling on over swimsuit or pairing with a tee in the morning. The blue are so cute, too!
+I think I need this for my patio. I’m freaking out over it.
+For your golf-loving mini me. And for golf-loving you — I just got this golf dress for myself! My parents are giving me new golf clubs for my birthday (!) and I need to have the right accoutrements.
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By: Jen Shoop
What are we wearing over our swimsuits this summer? I’ve been reaching for a lot of lightweight pull-on pants, oversized shirts, floaty gauze dresses, and pareos — these are pieces that are light, effortless, and also outfit-making, or outfit-enhancing. A lot of you Magpies have been LOVING these eyelet pants I wore the other week as a cover up. (Run a tad big but I’d still advise taking your true size.)
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
By: Jen Shoop
Note: This book review contains spoilers!
Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore explores the porousness between life and death, and the wearying responsibility of stewarding the living through the buffeting dangers of the world while they are here. McConaghy makes the point that we are capable — perhaps hardwired — to perform extreme acts of self-sacrifice to ensure the survival of our loved ones, but also asks haunting questions about what it means to be sending our children into an uncertain world, imperiled as it is by climate calamities and other lurking evils. The book asks: “What future is worth surviving for?” This motif is carried out at its most literal in the Salt family’s mission to preserve seeds in the event of global destruction. The Salts huddle around the responsibility of safeguarding them, and when they discover that not all seeds can be saved, they must decide which to protect, and which to let go. The rubric for this decision-making is unclear: Do we save the ones most likely to thrive and nourish? Do we protect the rarest of the lot, the ones most likely never to come back? Or do we permit our own imperfect hearts to make the call, favoring those whose features move us? This is, of course, incalculable math, and McConaghy looks roughly and then gently at all parts of the equation.
On Shearwater Island, the dead and the living co-mingle uncomfortably, haunting and reassuring one another in interesting ways. Dom speaks to his dead wife; Rowan is haunted by memories of her brother, River; and Orly communes with the dead creatures on the island. It becomes clear that we can hold onto the people we love even after they are gone — we can carry them with us, speak to them — a truth both comforting and challenging. On the island, we have recently-buried bodies, the voices of the dead, the dark image of happily-living seals and penguins wandering around enormous tubs once used to hold penguins and seals when traders plundered the island. We also have the voices of two deceased characters (Alex and Dom’s wife) occasionally present themselves in the prose, as speakers in different chapters: in these cases, the dead are quite literally speaking among the living. And, in the end, we learn that Rowan’s narrations have always been posthumous, as she dies protecting her “adoptive” son in a final climactic moment. The narrative seems to transcend itself here, performing its own function as a way of uniting people around loss. The text, McConaghy suggests, can hold the entire spectrum of the living and the dead together. In this way, it performs a powerful social function.
I was astounded by McConaghy’s agile toggling between metaphor and plot. You can absolutely read the book as a pulsing thriller, with fabulous cliff-hangers and danger lurking at every turn, but you can also read much of the novel as allegory: what do we do at the end of the world? Her word choice in every line is careful and poetic. I love especially the word “shore” — the liminal, evolving space between land and water. It shrinks in tide; it is continuously falling into the water body adjacent. But it can also be a reprieve, firm ground. This is as perfect an avatar for the feeling of this novel as you can imagine: are we on terra firma, or is the sand disappearing beneath us grain by grain?
There were many vignettes in this novel that lingered, resonant with meaning, for me. I was particularly moved by the description of the whale who lost her baby, and the way that other whales swam to her, retrieved the carcass, and surrounded her in her grief. This happens in our species as well, of course: we huddle around the grieving even when we can do nothing to bring the lost back. This, too, McConaghy points out, is a way of surviving: leaning into the warmth and empathy of others. The other scene that continues to return to my mind’s eye each time I think of the novel: the moment when Dom, his children, and Row have just enjoyed an elaborate and rare feast, and are dancing on the shore. Disaster looms imminent, but they make of their bodies “a language of joy.” This felt like an important cipher for the book: even while standing at the edge of the world, facing unknown peril and likely ending, we can rejoice by forming impermanent connections with one another. We can move together. I saw this motif also in the improvisational poetry of Row joining Dom’s family for a portion of the novel, stepping in as a mother figure. Mitosis, fusion: temporary shapes cluster around one another, then split off.
The book echoes elsewhere in many ways. On a narrative level, there are many repetitions of similar acts of preservation in the face of catastrophe: mother wombats protecting their young from fire by shuffling them underground and then barring the burrow with their bodies; trees whose pods only open in extreme heat; mothers who give their lives delivering their babies; and so on. On a language level, McConaghy has a knack for the onomatopoeic, or the autological: words that sound like what they describe, or perform meaning in creative ways. For example, “Shearwater” — you can almost feel the sluicing of the place, its hidden blade, in the very name of the novel’s central setting. This is a place of dangerous water. Most of the characters have mono-syllabic, staccato names that puncture the text: Claire, Fen, Row, Dom, Raff. I came to see these blunt namings as a morse code for life, and living.
All in all, I absolutely loved the artistry of this book, its deft conjuring of place, and its wide-eyed grappling with sweeping questions around what we owe one another, what we owe the future, and what we owe the dead. I consider it one of the best books I’ve read in 2025 and cannot wait to hear your thoughts, critiques, and insights in the comments.
Wild Dark Shore Moodboards.
Wild Dark Shore Book Club Questions.
In case you are hosting an in-person club, or want to do some guided reflecting on the work, I put together a couple of questions below. Feel free to jump into some or any of these in the comments, too!
01. Why do you think WDS alternated between narrators? What effect did this have on the plot?
02. Did you read the word “shore” (from the title) as I did, as an avatar for the overarching feeling of the book? What do you think is “The Wild Dark Shore”? Why would McConaghy anchor us in that language, or that image?
03. What did you make of the voices of the wind, and the dead, in this book? They are accepted without narrative friction; Dom hears his wife, and it is represented as actual conversation.
04. The island is both dangerous to and beloved by the Salt family — especially Fen and Dom. What did you make of their connection to the island? How is Shearwater treated in the novel — as a setting, as a plot catalyst, as…? (What else is it?)
05. Let’s talk about Raff and his music — violin and whale song. How does this shape or reflect the text? (At one point, Raff “trades” his punching bag for his musical instruments. Are they substitutes for one another in some way? Why or why not?)
06. So many of the characters are complex and empathetic, but Hank is portrayed as greedy and self-preserving, with limited positive attributes. What did you make of his character?
07. We witness several climate catastrophes in the novel: fire, flood, storm, thaw. What portrait does McConaghy paint of nature, and its future?
08. How would categorize Wild Dark Shore in terms of genre?
Book Club Fare for Wild Dark Shore.
Are you hosting an in-person gathering for this book? This was always one of my favorite parts of my in-person book club in Chicago: designing a themed menu. I like the idea of putting out a spread of tinned fishes with crackers and hard cheese. My cousin-in-law takes people on expeditions to Antartica (!!! — her business is called Quixote Expeditions if you’re interested; tell her I sent ya!) and this is the kind of snack they might offer, as items are shelf stable for some time. If you want something more robust, this is the perfect occasion for a seafood plateau — oysters, shrimp, clams. If you’re feeling super splurgey, crab claws or lobster! And of course all the accoutrements: mignonette, cocktail sauce, lemon wedges, maybe a mustard sauce for the crab claws, or drawn butter.
On the beverage front, I asked myself: “what cocktail brings to mind the maritime — the cold, the salty, the oceanic?” If you’re an advanced cocktailer, you might try Punchdrink’s Sailor’s Paradise, which involves pickled melon brine (!) and suggests an oyster for garnish.
If you’re after something lower-key (I love a built cocktail for parties), let me suggest a perfect Gin and Tonic, and we’ll call it “The Shearwater G&T.” It’s crisp, it’s brisk, the tonic is medicinal–and gin always reminds me of the navy.
The Shearwater G&T.
2 oz Monkey 47 Gin
2 oz fever tree tonic
For garnish: Lime wedge, juniper berry
Fill a collins glass with ice. Add gin, then tonic. Squeeze a lime wedge into glass and add the wedge to the glass, too. Crush juniper berries using a mortar and pestle and add to gin glass.
A Wild Dark Shore Moody Playlist.
This text is so rich, the setting so atmospheric: the novel gave me instant ideas about a playlist to match. This may not be ideal for an actual book club — a little too slow/heavy for a social event? For that occasion, I’d recommend my dinner party playlist. But if you want to be in all of your feelings while reading and crying to this book, you might give this one a listen. (On Apple here, on Spotify here.) This is a moody mix of sea songs, ballads about endings, and voices that strum the heart. “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” felt just right for Rowan and her grief over the fire.
WDS Dream Casting.
I hope this book is adapted to screen — the plot is wild and thrilling, and the setting visually evocative. I know Dom is probably fair-haired like his children, but I imagined a dark and swarthy hero — someone with the quiet strength of Tom Hardy but maybe more wiriness and communicability? I don’t know, but he looks in my mind’s eye like a blend of these random handsome fishermen I found on Pinterest:
For Rowan: Daisy Edgar Jones! I couldn’t get her out of my head for this character. Or maybe someone like Riley Keough?
Who else do you think might be a good cast for a film adaptation?
Next Month’s Magpie Book Club Pick: Orbital by Samantha Harvey.
Next month’s book club pick is Orbital by Samantha Harvey, a Booker Prize winner. Description: “A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space…Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.” A completely different look at planet earth than the one offered by McConaghy, but seeming to pluck on similar strings–I thought this would be interesting to read in conversation with Wild Dark Shore, and I’m also interested in the prominence of space books right now — Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest, Atmosphere, is also focused on astronauts.
Beyond that, a Magpie reader compelling described Orbital as her top book of 2024, adding “I never would have thought I’d like a book about astronauts in a space station orbiting the earth but boy does it capture the bigness and smallness of living. The prose is so good, meditative, subtle and the imagery vividly transports you to the foreign world of an orbiting space station. I found just the premise of being able to imagine myself falling through space had a profound effect on the experience of reading the book.” Ad lunam!
Sign Up for Magpie Book Club Emails.
This morning, I sent a special edition newsletter to book club email subscribers; you can sign up here! (If you already subscribe to my newsletter, you received this as well!) I will be sending out a once or twice a month newsletter to the book club list!
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
By: Jen Shoop
The vibe of the week: ebullient, whipsawed, “what am I forgetting”? The end of school, family flying into town to stay with us for a week, manuscript submitted, catching up on the social life I more or less abandoned for a month while deep in drafting…! I’ve come up for air, and it is refreshing and chaotic! But the fizzy-business of the week also made me wonder why we volunteered to schedule the children’s passport appointment and various other inessential but lovely things for right now. Couldn’t we have waited until the languor of August? Receipts to carry forward to next June, when I will inevitably overbook myself again.
Things I did well this week:
+Took proper time to celebrate the milestone of submitting my manuscript. Landon took me out to dinner, and we opened a bottle of Ruinart the afternoon I told him: “it’s finished; I can’t look at it anymore.” That is, until I receive the developmental edits…! When I will again tumble into an abyss of words and self-doubt. Ha!
+Listened to my body in various ways. Drank a ton of water, put myself to bed early one night, let myself skip a run. It’s always a tug of war, isn’t it — when to push yourself to stay committed, and when to go slack and loose. I’m favoring the “softer” side right now. It feels right.
+Somehow managed to get all the gifts wrapped and distributed — for some reason, it was gifting week? End of school gifts, niece and nephew gifts, a neighbor’s graduation gift, hostess gifts! I felt like I was running a small gifting business. I don’t know how, but somehow every gift was carefully selected, wrapped, ribboned, and handed off at the right time. One little mnemonic that has been helping me right now, especially when I am pulled in a lot of different directions: do the small thing to completion. I’m often tempted to half-assemble the gift, and then say “eh, the tissue paper is all the way in the basement; I’ll get it next time I’m down there” or “I should put fresh towels up in the guest room while I’m thinking of it, but ehhh I don’t feel like it.” This week has been all about doing small things all the way. This has the benefit of giving me tiny dopamine hits throughout the day — “checkmark! completed!” — and gives me the impression of “one more closed tab.”
+Continued my nighttime phone detox. Now going on week three of no phone from the moment I set foot in my bedroom at night to the next morning at 8 am, usually once the kids are off to school.
Things I want to work on:
+Maintaining more equanimity in the face of my kids’ meltdowns and tantrum-y behavior. I saw a funny meme this week that said: “I don’t know what you’d call this phase of parenting, but I’m in the one where you say, ‘Take off your shoes,’ and your kid says, ‘These are sandals.'” That’s about where we’ve been this week with my daughter — recalcitrant, correcting. It has been difficult to maintain composure when she’s pushing all my buttons but I really am trying. Sometimes I think — you know, I’m not a robot, it’s OK to express hurt, frustration, surprise, etc? Wouldn’t it be weird and wrong to respond with perfect stoicism to every wild barb tossed our way as parents? But as with anything, there’s a middle ground. There are times to express shock and times to be the quiet voice of reason. I am working hard on the latter.
+The five second rule. I still scramble to fill voids and reassure people conversationally way too much, and when I am intentional about just staying quiet for a second, I find it excruciating…! I was aware of this a few times this week.
Work in progresses, all — on we go —
Sunday Shopping.
+First, had to mention that my new gingham linen bedding (seen above) is 25% off at the moment! I’m in love with it!
+Into a longer hemline denim short at the moment, inspired by Alice Pilate (seen below)…into these Everlanes!
+After I wrote this post on “swimsuits for mom life,” one of the brands I mentioned, Stylest, which is designed to accommodate the coverage needs of any woman, reached out to send me one of their styles! I can’t wait to wear and review. I picked this style — their bestseller — in a chili red.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
By: Jen Shoop
+BOLD SUMMER PLAYLIST: If you’re looking for something peppier and zestier than my “soft summer playlist” (as I was compiling mine, I was imagining what kind of music I’d want to have wafting in through open windows while enjoying a glass of rose), you must check out Cadets’ Songs of Summer and Summers Past. It’s perfect for an outdoor BBQ, a pool hang, etc! I have actually been listening to it while putting together a bunch of my summer shopping posts this week. And of course Cadets’ resort collection is the perfect attire for the playlist!
+READING AND EMPATHY: I loved this quote by George R.R. Martin I came across this week. How spectacularly true?! Good readers are deeply empathetic.
+BOAT SHOES: Falling hard for these chic boat shoes, reimagined. The laces make them, don’t you think?! This under-$150 pair has a more feminine silhouette that I also find chic.
+THE DEAREST FRESHNESS DEEP DOWN: This stanza from Gerard Manley Hopkins leapt right out at me. I love the description of nature, the “dearest freshness deep down.” It’s exactly right: the sense of things welling up, the nascent or budded beauty of it all.
+EYEING + BUYING: On my radar this week, in addition to the boat shoes: longer-hem jean shorts?! Who am I? Why do I covet these Gap jean shorts?!
+”HOW PEOPLE DO LIFE”: I was also struck by this lovely sentiment on Instagram: “I love seeing how people do life. The messy and the specific to them.” I think this is a big part of why Instagram was, initially, so intriguing, although it has evolved to be many different things since. It reminded me of a Magpie reader who commented that she liked the way, in 2025, I have been exploring “the messes around life and love.” I have been thinking so much along those lines — about how we’re almost always in the murky middle of something, and how much easier life becomes when we’ve cultivated the competency to wait, hang tight, be present in the in-betweens.
+BESTSELLERS: This week’s top seller: these CHIC gingham pants! Planning to do a micro-post with different ideas on how to style them soon.
I am swooning over this striped La Ligne dress (use code MAGPIE10) I wore to dinner this week — but was stuck on which bag to wear with it and polled my Magpies on Instagram. They voted for the VB Dash clutch, which is what I went with!
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
By: Jen Shoop
This week, I was talking with a mother whose son leaves for college at the end of the summer. I asked how she felt about the prospect of an empty nest, and she thought for a moment and said: “I just really need to re-conceptualize my time.” She explained that, for 25 years, she has worked half-time so that she could be there for the afterschool stretch (pick up, extracurriculars, homework, dinner, bed) for each of her three children. This had been the agreed-upon arrangement between her and her ex-husband, and she was happy with it. Just after her divorce, though, she had been startled by the quietness of the weekends her children were away from her; she explained she’d had to figure out how to redefine that time so that it didn’t swallow her. And so she is now anticipating, as her youngest prepares to fly the coop, the weirdness of not having an afternoon anchor to her days, and she knows she needs to reshape that part of her calendar.
I thought, first, how wise this woman is; how clearly and well she knows her own mind. She is an obvious expert in herself. She sees the inclement weather ahead and asks herself, care-ingly: “What will I need? What will comfort, what will ease me across?” It felt a little bit like she was writing a thoughtful, nourishing packing list for the future. (“What might I want?”)
I thought, too, how creatively sanguine it was — how writerly, how artistic? — that she conceived of her time in this way: elastic, able to be recast. For years, her children have been the afternoon drumbeat. What new rhythm can she find for herself?
Another woman sitting with us mentioned, a few minutes later, on a different but not altogether unrelated tack, that when flamingoes have babies, they temporarily lose their pink color. While focused on nourishing their chicks, they shift their own diets and habits, leading to a loss in color vibrancy; once their young become more independent, the regain their signature pink.
I’ve written a lot lately about how mothers undergo tremendous transformation every single day — just last week, I noted: “We shapeshift into the oak-tree of a firm “no,” the eiderdown of a soft landing, the morning rays that gently coax, the quiet night that holds the peace. I can meet this transition, and whatever it asks of me, too.”
Thinking today of the epochal changes we undertake as mothers, too — not just the way we evolve to meet the needs of today’s narrow demands, but the needs of the broader life-stage, too. How we change when our babies are born; how we recast our days when our children leave home. These are not nothings. These are moments of enormous identity shift. How can we approach them with grace and an open mind?
Inspired today by the model of that mother, by her gentle packing list for the upcoming journey.
+New toiletry sets and pareo prints at Julia Amory! Love and own multiple of these items. The toiletry sets are such great sizes; you can toss in the laundry and air dry; and they have lined and pocketed interiors. Great gift!
+BTW, while you’re at Staud, don’t miss their sale section! Extra 20% off their gorgeous and flattering Wells dress or ribbed knit dress in the most gorgeous sage green! And how fab is this tweed top?!
+Managed to grab my kids Quince’s boy’s boxers and girls underwear while restocked! These sell out so quick and are great quality – similar to Hanna Andersson. Also picked up these striped $29 sweaters for both my kids and can’t believe the quality.
If you like the look of this dress but want something a little less expensive, try this Tuckernuck or this Cara Cara! Note that my dress above from Alemais also comes in this cool tie-dye, which would be so fab for a summer party with some dramatic necklaces.
Even more great Shopbop picks below; all of my hearts are shoppable here!
02. Navy print with a low back — all of Minnow’s suits are so flattering and well-designed, with a nice and thick fabric that holds you in. Run a tad shy of TTS. I’d still take your true size but find they are tiny bit snug.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
By: Jen Shoop
At a gathering earlier this month, one of my neighbors commented: “you pick your house, but your inherit your neighbors; it’s so lucky that we ended up with such a great block.” To this, another neighbor replied: “Actually, my husband chose to build a house on this street because he liked the people here so much.”
Wow! Both of the comments made me think about how we chose this home in Bethesda, which wasn’t in the initial set of neighborhoods we were looking at, and didn’t have some of the features we’d thought we’d wanted–and yet some of its true virtues were completely lost on me when we signed the contract. What did I care about the cul de sac address? I was on my way to my own backyard and big kitchen — novelties after four years in New York City. As it turns out, living on a block with no thru-traffic has been an incredible gift for our children; it has empowered us to turn our kids out on the street with bikes, scooters, hockey sticks, and sidewalk chalk, and let them play independently for hours with neighborhood children without the slightest worry. It has also given us a convenient, out-of-the-way gathering place for morning coffee catch-ups and evening “roadies” with the neighbors; we spill into the street in bare feet, and collect in conversation.
And how could I have known I’d luck into such nurturing neighbors? The week before we moved in, one of them mowed our lawn for us; we were driving in from New York, exhausted and frazzled, and couldn’t believe our eyes. What an incredible generosity, to pull up to a new home with a freshly groomed yard. And that was just a foreshadowing of what would come. My neighbors have saved me dozens of times since, coming to my rescue with missing packages, “have you seen my dog?”, cups of sugar, ice for parties, spare towels, parenting solidarity, hand-me-down toys and books, extra folding chairs, Disney tips, restaurant recs, bug spray, words of encouragement when I really needed it, even a leant vacation home (!!) when we were desperate to get out of dodge. I will never forget their tenderness when our dog died. I emailed our next door neighbors first — even before telling other family members — because they just needed to know, would wonder where she was, and I knew they would have the right thing to say. They did. And they mourned her with us, and planted flowers in her memory, and placed a little rock with her paw print and name on it in the cul de sac.
And how could I have anticipated that the sweet thirteen year old girl next door would become something of a big sister to my kids, baby-sitting them and serving as a mother’s helper for countless afternoons and evenings? That she would one day wear a friendship bracelet my daughter had made her, and proudly, to her high school, completely thrilling my six-year-old?
A good house is probably just as precious as a good neighbor. I did nothing to vet for this, but how lucky I am to live on a street full of them.
I’m curious — what drew you to your home? And what endears it to you now? Is there a difference between the two?
+Currently wearing and loving these comfortable patterned shorts. They are lined but with an airy cotton so it feels SO easy breezy but totally opaque. Just obsessed with the pattern!
+Love (!) Few Moda’s collab with Alli Sisto Daniels! I have this gingham mini and this patterned set sitting in my cart! Exactly what I want to be wearing right now.
+My daughter was invited to two pool parties this week! I sent her with these dive buddies as a gift. Other cute ideas: these inflatable noodles, this waterproof set of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, and these waterproof cards.
Continuing in our “what to pack” series (see Miami/Palm Beach here and Aspen/Vail here): what do we pack for a summer trip to Nantucket? I believe this guide is applicable to other New England destinations, but am anchoring in ACK. I consulted several friends who have spent substantial amount of time on Nantucket for their input, and can’t wait to share some style ideas.
The Fourth of July is just around the corner! This year, we’ll be taking our kids to a huge festivity with fireworks, a buffet dinner, and every patriotic themed sweet treat imaginable. This is the first year we’ve done this with the kids in tow, as we’ve always felt my son was a little too young to stay up until 9 to see the fireworks. But as a newly minted six year old — ! Today, I’m rounding up the cutest pieces for whatever you find your family partaking in this Fourth of July, be it a casual pool afternoon, a parade, or fireworks.
I did want to mention that I recently revisited a super-old post of mine (from 2018) about a Ralph Lauren “Mommy and Me” capsule they launched and of course all of those items had long sold out but I came across a crop of adorable new mommy-and-me styling opportunities using their latest collection and updated the post to reflect it! Lots of Americana in there, too, in case you’re looking for something a little less on-the-nose!