That Old Cape Magic

Let me begin by stating I have never been to the Cape. I have read lots of stories which evoke the Cape, and so it feels like a place I know, if only in text. So when I saw Richard Russo had written That Old Cape Magic, published in 2009, it seemed like a good choice. Russo won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for Empire Falls, a spectacular work. His 2007 Bridge of Sighs was also excellent, but this latest book is much lighter and warmer than I expected. Cape follows a year in the life of a Hollywood screenwriter/ college professor, Jack Griffin, as he struggles with his marriage, his career and his dead mother and father. He, in fact, carries their urns around in the trunk of his car for quite a while, trying to release them at a perfect spot on the Cape, their annual summer vacation spot during Jack's turbulent childhood. Both his parents -- Ivy League educated English professors -- were doomed to spend their careers in the wretched Midwest. Jack's own marriage comes into play as he tries to see the influence his parent's marriage model established for him. It is a wickedly funny novel in parts, one scene with a rehearsal dinner disaster was laugh-out loud hilarious. Russo's brilliance as a novelist is in his ability to evoke truth in his characters, and I must say he has frankly nailed the Sandwich Generation. If you haven't read any Russo, Empire Falls is more sweeping, but there is clearly magic at The Cape.