Replete with at least two dozen characters, Beach Music challenges the reader to keep up with the role of each one. Jack McCall, narrator and protagonist from South Carolina, flees to Italy with daughter Leah following a custody battle with his in-laws. Devastated by the suicide of his wife, Shyla, who jumped from a South Carolina bridge, he chooses to live in Italy, a country containing only low bridges. A cookbook and travel writer, McCall attempts an escape from his past which includes an alcoholic father and a smiling liar of a mother. He never wants to think about his extended family again, or about the treachery of one particular friend which led to the supposed suicide of another. Jack considers himself a cold person, unable to love in the way he should, and he carries a guilt regarding his wife's suicide which he cannot release. His daughter...