Summary

The sudden death of a childhood friend draws a group of expatriates back to their hometown to pay their respects, comfort his family, and confront their own destinies. Among them are Alice and Sam, a former couple whose past summer romance was doomed from the start. Living in a small community, their age difference shocked everyone—especially Alice's parents, who already had their hands full with their daughter’s recent emotional breakdown.

Despite her fragile emotional state, Alice delivers an uplifting eulogy. It is a powerful moment, given the relentless grief she has carried most of her life: the loss of a promising classical music career, her first love and their child, her husband, and now, a childhood friend.

After the funeral, Alice confesses her dread of the future and invites Sam, her junior by several years, to linger in town. Beneath a lighthearted pretense, Sam demands answers for her abrupt goodbye years ago. Alice wants nothing more than to unload her guilt and recapture what she lost when she was forced to do the "right thing."

Accusations, confessions, and old betrayals do little to heal the rift, so they agree to spend one more summer together to see if they can rekindle what they lost. They soon discover the earlier roadblocks to a happy relationship and stigmas that hounded them are hard to shake and made more complex by Alice’s four sons and Sam’s globetrotting. Across the table, Ping Pong emerges as a highly competitive, fast-paced thriller requiring unflinching athletic skill and psychological stamina to survive a complex assault of social and personal rebuke and emotional mind games."