In Eden's Glen, an iconic world of privilege and ease, the comfortable rituals of wealth and leisure have created an enclave almost untouched by time. But position is not easy to attain, or to keep. And quiet desperation has suddenly found its way into lives whose paths were always smooth before.

One family has indisputably stood atop Eden's Glen for generations: the Winthrops. They run the bank, invitations to their parties are the most coveted in town, their favor dictates who gets into the country club - and who does not. But even the Winthrops are not immune to the pressures that underlie the clean, calm surface of life in Eden's Glen. Chafing from the quiet disappointments of twenty years of marriage leaves Preston & Anne Winthrop - the town's golden couple - unprepared to deal with a long-buried secret that bubbles up to shatter an otherwise uneventful summer of tee times and ladies' lunches. As husband and wife struggle to come to terms with their changed lives, their teenage son's misery goes unsoothed. And the events that follow reveal that even money and position cannot save their charmed world.

An elegant and moving novel about marriage and the price of a bourgeois American life, Club Rules is powerful, biting and unforgettable.