The Book: That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo
The Story: This book centers around Jack Griffin and his relationship with his wife, Joy. It kind of made me think of when my husband and I were going through pre-marital counseling and the pastor asked us about our relationships with our future in-laws. He said that we’re not just marrying each other, that we’re marrying each other’s families too. Jack kind of wants to just write his parents off. Joy wants to be a major part of her family’s day-to-day life. This is a source of contention that started earlier in their marriage but now, 30 years later, has driven a huge wedge between them. Early in their marriage, they made kind of a “life plan” and have worked all these years to obtain those wishes. Even though they have physically gotten there, Jack still finds Joy crying in the shower and they are just overall miserable.
During the first part of the book, they are going to a wedding of their daughter’s childhood friend. Jack’s dad has recently died and he is taking his ashes with him to scatter in the Cape, a very important part of their family’s past. While there, not only do things really come to a head with his wife, Jack really does a lot of reflecting. These are the promised bits of humor in the book. Jack’s parents are these crazy academics, and their snobbiness is really funny at times. Even after their deaths, Jack is still hearing them and being effected by how he was raised.
The second part takes place at the wedding of Jack and Joy’s daughter. Jack is still reflecting and hearing his parent’s voices and by this time, he and Joy are separated. There is this one scene that really capped up the book for me. Laura, his daughter, is asking Jack what she can do to avoid breaking her future husband’s heart. She’s afraid that she just has something inside of her that is mean and wrong and that she’ll hurt him without even meaning too. It’s just easy to see that Jack and Joy’s relationship and effected her in the same way that Jack’s parent’s relationship effected him. The question that seemed to be at the center of this book was, “How long will we keep this up? How long will we make the same mistakes our parents made? How long will we be haunted by them?” They are good, relevant questions and this book is an exploration into the answer.
What I Thought: After reading this, I did a little bit of reading online and found out that this started out as a short story. I can absolutely see that. Not that it was less developed than a typical novel, but it was much less developed than Richard Russo’s typical novel. Most of his are kind of beastly and this is a skinny little thing in comparison. While this doesn’t have any effect on how “good” the book is, I do think that it could have stood for some more fleshing out.
That being said, I really enjoyed the character of Jack. He just seemed like this really normal guy, to me. He is kind of at a weird time in life: his parents are starting to die, he and his wife have been married for awhile and are at a tough patch, his daughter is getting married, his job is getting dull. You can almost feel his mental process: all of the paddling just to stay afloat. I started to sympathize with him right off the bat.
I also found out while I was doing a little online reading that Richard Russo is a screenwriter. I can totally see that. I’m pretty sure that he saw this in his head as a movie first then wrote it as a book. The main character is even a screenwriter and a couple of scenes are written in script form. The imagery of the cape and both of the beautiful weddings… this was made to be a movie.
Conclusion: I know I say this kind of thing a lot, but here goes: not Richard Russo’s best, but a good book for sure. I’m not really to that mid-life point yet, but I think that for someone who is getting there, this would be even more poignant.