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That Old Cape Magic
  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099541844
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99

That Old Cape Magic

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Oct 2010
Paperback
1 Oct 2010
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A funny, bittersweet novel about two weddings and a divorce, parents, family myth and memory, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls.

Jack and Joy Griffin are back on Cape Cod - where they spent their hope-filled honeymoon - for a wedding. Cracks are begining to show in Jack's peaceful family life and thirty-four year marriage. He's driving round with his father's ashes in an urn in the boot of his car, haunted by memories of bittersweet family holidays spent at the Cape, while his acerbic mother is very much alive and always on his mobile. He's spent a lifetime trying to be happier than his parents, but has he succeeded?

A year later, at a second wedding, Jack has a second urn in the car, and his life is starting to unravel.
  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099541844
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Richard Russo

Richard Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his fifth novel Empire Falls (made into a TV series starring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Helen Hunt). He is also the author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool , Straight Man and Bridge of Sighs, as well as a collection of stories, The Whore's Child. His original screenplay is the basis for Rowan Atkinson's film Keeping Mum, with Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas. He has collaborated with Robert Brenton on the screenplays for Nobody's Fool (filmed with Paul Newman) and Twilight. He lives with his wife in Maine and in Boston.

portrait photo of Richard Russo

Also by Richard Russo

On Helwig Street
The Whore's Child
Empire Falls
Mohawk
Straight Man
The Risk Pool
Nobody's Fool
See all

Praise for That Old Cape Magic

Thoroughly satisfying

Time Out

The remarkable thing about this novel is its resemblance to real life. Russo creates a family that is utterly recognisable and unique... superb

The Times

Russo brings a familiar story to life with wit, elegance, deftness and empathy

Sunday Times

Russo meditates on memory, ageing, inheritance, marriage, desire and the meaning of happiness... Written with humour and assurance

Guardian

Russo has a knack for capturing the most intimate details in the lives of ordinary people

Chicago Tribune

A novel for people who are terrified of becoming their parents... A dyspeptic romantic comedy... [And] an utterly charming novel. If you always cry at weddings, you'll cry at this - and laugh, too

Washington Post

Nobody tops Russo for nailing the self-aggrandising sourness of a certain class of American intelligentsia. Hollywood agents should be on standby

Alfred Hickling, Guardian

Russo's well-scripted story of mid-life crisis breezily captures the moment when everything was predictable and yet somehow you failed to see it coming

Emma Hagestadt, THe Independent