That Old Cape Magic

About this book

Following Bridge of Sighs--a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as "an astounding achievement" and "a masterpiece"--Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father's ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura's best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents' respite from the hated Midwest. And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that's now thirty years old and has largely come true. He'd left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they'd moved into an old house full of character; and they'd started a family. Check, check and check.But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, their beloved Laura's, on the coast of Maine, Griffin's chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large, unruly family, and …

Themes & subjects

About the author

Richard Russo

1949

Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. In 2002, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel *Empire Falls.* Several of his works have been adapted into television series and movies. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural, small-town life in the Northeastern United States, particularly in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Russo's native Upstate New York.