That Old Cape Magic [Paperback]

`...nobody tops Russo for nailing the self-aggrandising sourness of a certain class of American intelligentsia. Hollywood agents should be on standby.'
--The 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"'
--The Independent

`Russo's...story of mid-life crisis...captures the moment "when everything was predictable and yet...you failed to see it..."
--The Independent

A funny, bittersweet novel about two weddings and a divorce, parents, family myth and memory

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 ascerbic 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.

'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

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 ascerbic 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.

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

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

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

'A novel for people who are terrified of becoming their parents...a dyspeptic romantic comedy... If you always cry at weddings, you'll cry at this -- and laugh, too' Washington Post

Richard Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize 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 (filmed with Paul Newman), 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 lives with his wife in Maine and in Boston.