Down East 2013 ©
Camden’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, casts his spell again with his eighth novel That Old Cape Magic (Knopf, New York, New York; hardcover; 272 pages, $25.95). This time, Russo takes a look at marriage in all its forms by delving into the family life of middle-aged protagonist Jack Griffin. The plot centers around two weddings, that of his daughter’s best friend in Cape Cod and, a year later, his own daughter’s in Maine. Amid others’ blissful marital beginnings Griffin also has to examine his own fraught union of thirty years. The book is already weaving some magic. Russo’s latest work has been hailed “an astounding achievement,” by the Boston Globe and “a novel of great warmth, charm, and intimacy,” by the New York Times.
New York City resident and author of eight novels, including More Than You Know and Leeway Cottage, Beth Gutcheon takes a look at family life on the Maine coast in Good-Bye and Amen (Harper Perennial, New York, New York; paperback; 272 pages; $13.99). The three children of a peculiar and complicated marriage attempt to make sense of what they have inherited without creating indelible, new rifts.