Status
Checked out
Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
Description
The lives of Jack and Joy Griffin always seem to come back to Cape Cod, where they honeymooned, as they experience the ups and downs of life, including the deaths of Jack's parents, the marriage of their daughter, and Jack and Joy's divorce.
Media reviews
The same narrative adroitness that in other books give Russo’s interior monologues such humor does similar work here by drawing the reader into Griffin’s wounded psyche. But coming from a famously funny writer, you feel that Russo is holding himself back, humor-wise, and that makes the story
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feel a little off, like there’s something we’re missing about Griffin. Show Less
In one of America's most mythic landscapes, Russo details one man's shaky first steps out of his past and into self-knowledge with good humor, generosity, and an open heart.
If, as a reader, you give yourself over to the delights of artifice — to Russo's tight variations on a few themes; to the cyclical returns to season and place; and to the revelations offered up by a slim cast of characters — you'll love, as I did, this pared-down Russo.
Russo has written six previous novels, among them the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Empire Falls,” and we’ve come to expect certain things: a complicated skein of plotlines, deep connection to place, and affection for the large cast of characters who blunder and struggle through his pages. “That
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Old Cape Magic” does not disappoint. Show Less
Like the old jokes about sex and pizza, it’s possible there’s no such thing as a bad Richard Russo novel. His latest, That Old Cape Magic, is far from his strongest, and it continues some mildly troubling trends for him, but it has enough of his trademark strengths to recommend it.
Mr. Russo supplies enough props, picture postcards and pratfalls to underscore the fragility of his latest venture. Its main character, the autobiographical-sounding Jack Griffin, feels adrift after having lived in the worlds of both moviemaking and academia and is no longer sure where his heart or
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his talents lie. This entertaining but facile book suggests that Mr. Russo is himself contemplating those same questions. Show Less
There's little doubt that vacationers will be enjoying "That Old Cape Magic," this August. And in Cape Cod communities like Truro and Martha's Vineyard this dead-on chronicle of both New England and academia is likely to resonate. And what more, this is one summer read that no one need hide behind
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a newspaper. Show Less
A warm novel whose comic bits blend seamlessly with weightier themes, That Old Cape Magic finds Russo on familiar turf as well. At heart a story of a midlife crisis, it quietly wages war against clichés, introducing characters who seem destined to serve functions they’re never actually called
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upon to perform, and relying more on sharply drawn pieces of everyday life than the sort of story formulas that helped lead its protagonist to flee Hollywood. Show Less
"That Old Cape Magic" is eminently filmable -- two weddings and two urns of cremains in search of release, if not a funeral. It boasts a tight single-year timeline, photogenic locations, lots of physical comedy and snappy dialogue. But readers looking for the warmth and complexity of that old Russo
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magic may prefer his harder-hitting, small-town novels. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2010)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2009)
Language
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
261 p.; 25 inches
ISBN
9780375414961
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