In the summers, Shelter Island — a paradisiacal enclave close to Sag Harbor — floods with well-to-do Hamptonites who like to use the season as a verb. But in the off-season, the island is quieter and more discrete. It’s an ideal place to rehabilitate ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and to keep their secrets hidden from public view.
Such Sheltered Lives, the latest novel from author Alyssa Sheinmel ’02, centers around three characters admitted to a rehabilitation center on the island. Florence, an aging pop star, is plagued with tabloid scandals. Edward, an English aristocrat, is in the throes of addiction. Amelia, the daughter of a 90s rock legend, wrestles with an eating disorder. In the opening chapter of the novel, an unidentified corpse is found near the center, casting suspicion on all three.
“There are many great books and shows about privileged people behaving badly and getting their comeuppance, but I found myself more interested in the struggles we have in common,” said Sheinmel. “Even though our backgrounds are different, these characters were pulled from the threads of my own life.”
Over the last 15 years, Sheinmel has become a prolific writer of young adult (YA) fiction, publishing around a dozen books and earning a spot on the New York Times Best Seller list. Some, like The Castle School for Troubled Girls and A Danger to Herself and Others, received praise for their coverage of serious issues like mental health and grief among teenagers. Such Sheltered Lives is her adult debut.
“For Such Sheltered Lives, I created two versions of the opening chapter, one as young adult and one as adult fiction,” said Sheinmel. “The more I got to know the characters, it just felt natural and exciting to take this book in an adult direction.”
Sheinmel was born in Northern California but moved to New York as a child, first going to public school in the Bronx before receiving a scholarship to attend The Spence School, a private, all-girls school on the Upper East Side. She found herself navigating an unfamiliar world of wealth and access, eager to connect with her new classmates. In the summers, she would babysit on Long Island’s East End — not far from Shelter Island. Her initial instinct was to return to California for college, but the academic pull of Barnard College was too strong to ignore.
Barnard’s Creative Writing Program turned out to be the perfect place to develop the skills of a professional author. “The teachers were real writers, and they treated us like we were real writers,” said Sheinmel, who cites professors Mary Gordon and Timea Széll as two of her faculty mentors. “It ended up being this magical program that taught me so much about reading, writing, and revision.”
The novel comes after a period of intense fascination with the private lives of the upper echelons of society — and a special regard for watching them be miserable. Take HBO’s "Succession," or Emerald Fennell’s "Saltburn," or the reboot of "Gossip Girl."
But Sheinmel has no interest in torturing her characters. After years spent developing them, she can’t help but feel affectionate towards their problems, many of which are universal.
“I hope I did the work as a writer to make them as interesting on the page as they are in my imagination,” she said.
Such Sheltered Lives will be released on Jan. 20 with Simon & Schuster.