That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo

With his new novel, That Old Cape Magic (Knopf, $25.95), Richard Russo takes us back to New England and the intimate details of family life.  Told through the filter of wedding weekends a year apart, this story unfolds like the best memories, simply at first, then quickly turning in on itself.  Russo plays with dualities of all orders and, perhaps most strikingly, manages to capture the essential quandary of summer—the feeling of endless possibility mixed with inescapable impermanence.  He shows us that experiences are almost always sweeter in the remembering; and that, for many of us, it’s the looking back that matters most.