Liberty Road

| written by Alice Hause

“Now that my kids are away at school and the four of us sometimes find ourselves in four different states, sports have kept us connected.”

Alice Hause is an avid reader and writer who likes to draw parallels between her favorite characters and her experiences as a mother, sister, wife, daughter, and friend. Every month, she breaks down a favorite book, offering her life takeaways and thoughtful questions to spark deeper reading and conversation. This month, Alice explores the novel Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson.

In Jenny Jackson's debut novel, Pineapple Street, one of the main characters, Georgiana Stockton, declares that she would never let anyone win on purpose, especially a family member. Even when Georgiana's brother could barely swing his tennis racket, "Georgiana still played her heart out and spanked him royally," writes Jackson. "He would have fallen over with shock if she'd done anything less. Competition was their family love language."

The Hause family language? Sports. We all grew up playing sports. We love going to games. We love watching sports together. And we all really love to talk about sports.

Our oldest was a sports fan practically out of the womb. He loved to throw, catch, and shoot every type of ball. He'd watch any sport on TV (and not only because he knew sports didn't count towards his allotted TV time). On the surface, it may seem strange that a West Coast kid loved so many East Coast teams, but those are the teams he could watch on TV before his early West Coast bedtime.

Our daughter was more touch and go. I toted bags full of coloring books, crayons, stickers, and fruit snacks (obviously not above bribery) to games because she had zero interest in the actual game. Thank goodness this was before the clear bag rules. But we knew she turned the corner when she asked me if she could be on my fantasy football team. I was so excited that I didn't even object when she wanted to use our first-round pick on Dan Bailey (yes, that Dan Bailey, the kicker).

And now that my kids are away at school and the four of us sometimes find ourselves in four different states, sports have kept us connected.

At any time, if you take a peek at our family group text, you'll find it full of texts about our favorite teams, favorite players, or events we're attending. When my son first left for school, he may not have texted or called as much as some of our friend's children, but he would always text with breaking news about my beloved Seahawks or Mariners. If there is a marquee game on, the odds are high that the four of us are all watching it from our far-flung locations. I always know I will get a quicker response if I text something about the game than ask my kids if they've received the care package I sent.

We also love going to games and events. In the past 12 months, the four of us combined have attended six college football games (including The Las Vegas Bowl, The Rose Bowl, and the National Championship), five college basketball games, the NFL Draft, and horse races at Keeneland. Many of our favorite family memories revolve around games we've attended together.

And, even though both kids are off to their summer internships or activities now, game days are already on the calendar for the fall and beyond—because this is, after all, our love language.

And I can't have my kids thinking I don't love them.

—Alice

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Alice’s Take on Pineapple Street

With the success of shows such as White Lotus and Succession, peeling back the curtains on the lives of the uber-rich is a popular obsession these days. Jenny Jackson’s debut novel, Pineapple Street, takes readers into this world by dropping them into the lives of the Stockton Family.

There’s Tilda, the matriarch of the family, who descended from a long line of political royalty and for whom “no evening was complete without a vision, a theme, a tablescape, and a dress code.” Tilda is married to Chip, who helms the family’s New York real estate empire. Tilda and Chip have three children. The eldest, Darley, who married for love and relinquished her inheritance; Cord, the only son, and now working alongside his father in the family business; and Georgiana, the baby of the family and the most naïve until a romance helped her find meaning in her life beyond her family and their wealth. And finally, there’s Sasha, who grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Rhode Island and married Cord but has yet to be embraced by the rest of the Stockton family.

Much of the novel’s observations on the life of extreme privilege that the Stockton’s lead comes from Sasha. We learn early on that Sasha did not, contrary to what Cord’s sisters may believe, marry Cord for his money. “It did take Sasha a long time to figure out that Cord was rich – embarrassingly long, considering that his name was Cord. Rather than overt, vulgar displays of wealth, rich New York guys apparently wore sweaters until they have holes in the elbows and had unhealthy close relationships with their mothers.”

Readers may find themselves wincing along with Sasha when she is dressed in “a pretty white blouse tucked into navy blue trousers” and mistaken for the catering staff. Or sharing in her anger and humiliation when blindsided with a prenup a month before their wedding. “Rather than welcoming her with open arms, they were shielding themselves from her infiltration.”

Redemption comes from Georgiana. Within minutes of meeting her, she exclaims, “Oh no! I left my Cartier bracelet in Lena’s BMW and she’s leaving soon for her grandmother’s house in Southampton!” Readers would be forgiven for thinking that the rest of the novel would serve up more of the same. However, a life-changing event causes her to see her world in a new light. Opening up to her mother, Georgina asks, “Have you ever paused and wondered, ‘Am I a good person? Or am I moving through this world making things a little worse instead of better?’”

Pineapple Street is a witty commentary that never pretends to take itself too seriously. The truth is that while there absolutely are people who embody all of the stereotypes of the 1 percent, there are others like Darley, born into her world of extreme privilege, but “didn’t feel the money belonged to her anyway. It belonged to her grandparents and her great-grandparents. She had done nothing but act as a drain—private school and vacations and clothing and death by the thousand cuts that was raising a child in the most expensive city in America.”

Moreover, the themes of family, and what is said and unsaid amongst members, finding love, and finding meaning in your life, are universal.

Alice’s Questions for Deeper Reading and Discussion

The Stocktons are a polarizing family. In what ways to do you relate to them? In what ways do you find them unrelatable?
Darley left her Wall Street job to raise her children but felt conflicted about her identity as a stay-at-home mom and "inadequate around women her age who were managing both kids and careers." What role do you think society today plays in mitigating or crediting her feelings?
Tilda is described as "being of a generation that despised difficult conversations and shut down at the slightest hint of conflict or unpleasantness." How would you characterize each of the siblings' relationship with Tilda?
Sasha is blindsided by a Stockton family lawyer asking her to sign a prenup. Even though her friend tells her that prenups in these situations are "really common for people with means," Sasha still feels angry and hurt. If you were Sasha, would you have signed the prenup?
How would you describe each of the siblings' relationships to the generational wealth they were born into? How do their respective love interests change their feelings about their wealth?