[Runnymede 04] • The Sand Castle

Since the publication of *Rubyfruit Jungle* in 1973, Rita Mae Brown has been a major American literary voice and a best-selling author. In *The Sand Castle* , she revisits some of her most unforgettable characters: sisters Juts and Wheezie Hunsenmeir, and Juts’s precocious young daughter, Nickel.

It’s August, 1952, and seven-year-old Nickel sets off for a day at the seashore with her mother, aunt, and cousin Leroy. Everyone’s excited when they reach Chesapeake Bay--everyone except for Leroy, who is recently motherless and frightened of the world around him. Nickel delights in tormenting her cousin, but, as the group lounges on the beach and begins work on a magnificent sand castle, the sisters try to coax him out of his shell by telling stories about their own childhood trips to the shore. But Nickel’s taunting of Leroy escalates, and the family history between her mother and aunt rises to the surface--and then a crab bites Leroy, and they must all come together. Only years later can Nickel see that day for what it truly was--a life-changing lesson about family and the pleasure and heartbreak that comes with it.