Slacks for Ella Funt

This was a book I read for my book club, from our brief period of reading National Book Award winners, which followed our brief period of reading South American authors, which followed our longer period of reading books set in New York. Now we seem to be back to reading contemporary fiction.
I didn’t expect to like this at all, mostly because I don’t end up liking many of the book club picks. But I actually ended up enjoying it. It’s set on a Turkish island that’s just starting to get tourists. The narrative shifts perspectives between a large cast of characters, mixed between Americans and Turks. Frequently, Settle describes a conversation from one character’s perspective and of course the character considers him or herself to be very wise/enlightened/interesting and that the other person is enthralled by the conversation. Then the perspective shifts to the other character, who had been bored by the conversation.
I was thinking about whether the same idea applied to the role of the author. In writing the book, Settle seems to be saying that she understands both the Americans and the Turks. But reading the book, I wondered whether she was just another foolish American, like the characters in her book, thinking that she knows what everyone is thinking.