Book Review | 'That Old Cape Magic,' by Richard Russo - The New York Times
Book Review|The Truro Accord
By ROXANA ROBINSON AUG. 13, 2009
Things get complicated. Griffin hears about a call from his old agent in Holly­wood. It could only mean another job: the idea reignites Griffin’s discontentment. He remembers the adrenalin rush of jetting off to LAX, the pleasures of holing up with his old partner and hammering out terrible scripts. The camaraderie, the self-inflating sense of being in the big time. He’s tempted — well, who wouldn’t be? That worm is going deeper and deeper.
When Griffin and Joy married, Joy had wanted to spend the honeymoon in Maine, near the ramshackle old house her family had always rented. But Griffin had persuaded — or bullied — her into a honeymoon on the Cape instead. The red flag should go up right here: in Russo’s world, Maine is the land of solid, true-blue values, and Cape Cod is where snobs go to feel superior. Griffin should have backed off at once. Instead, they honeymooned in Truro, where they agreed that Griffin would eventually stop working in Holly­wood and move back East to become a professor. But now he thinks aggrievedly that he has done that, he’s given Joy what she wanted. Isn’t it his turn? Isn’t he allowed to choose something that will make him happy for a change?
We could answer that, but we aren’t allowed to, so we watch while Griffin plays out his misguided plan. The second part of the novel takes place a year later, in Maine, and the second wedding is Laura’s. I won’t reveal what happens during the interim, except to say that Griffin and Joy have reached a pretty serious impasse, thanks largely to that nasty little critter in Griffin’s belly.
Slapstick is another tool in Russo’s repertory. The past drama of the parents’ marriage is relayed in comically dreadful flashbacks: the ghastly, manipulative graduate student who entraps the father after his divorce; the nightmare retirement dinner for the acidulous mother, who uses it as an opportunity to declare her real feelings; the casual disregard the parents, as renters, have for any house-owner’s property. Russo clearly enjoys himself as careers topple, good taste is outraged and professional ethics are mauled. By the second wedding, chaos appears in the present, and there’s a scene at the reception — involving a wheelchair, a rotten wooden ramp and a pair of truculent twin Marines — that Charlie Chaplin would have loved.
Family, family, family is the subject of “That Old Cape Magic.” The family is where the best — and the worst — things happen to us. Whether we embrace it or try to escape it, the family is at the center of our lives. Along with that voracious little worm of dissatisfaction, munching away. Which will triumph? Richard Russo roots for the family, but he knows the worm is there.
A version of this review appears in print on , on Page BR7 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: The Truro Accord. Today's Paper|Subscribe
A Conversation With Richard Russo AUG. 14, 2009
Book Review | 'That Old Cape Magic,' by Richard Russo - The New York Times
Book Review|The Truro Accord
By ROXANA ROBINSON AUG. 13, 2009
Things get complicated. Griffin hears about a call from his old agent in Holly­wood. It could only mean another job: the idea reignites Griffin’s discontentment. He remembers the adrenalin rush of jetting off to LAX, the pleasures of holing up with his old partner and hammering out terrible scripts. The camaraderie, the self-inflating sense of being in the big time. He’s tempted — well, who wouldn’t be? That worm is going deeper and deeper.
When Griffin and Joy married, Joy had wanted to spend the honeymoon in Maine, near the ramshackle old house her family had always rented. But Griffin had persuaded — or bullied — her into a honeymoon on the Cape instead. The red flag should go up right here: in Russo’s world, Maine is the land of solid, true-blue values, and Cape Cod is where snobs go to feel superior. Griffin should have backed off at once. Instead, they honeymooned in Truro, where they agreed that Griffin would eventually stop working in Holly­wood and move back East to become a professor. But now he thinks aggrievedly that he has done that, he’s given Joy what she wanted. Isn’t it his turn? Isn’t he allowed to choose something that will make him happy for a change?
We could answer that, but we aren’t allowed to, so we watch while Griffin plays out his misguided plan. The second part of the novel takes place a year later, in Maine, and the second wed
ding is Laura’s. I won’t reveal what happens during the interim, except to say that Griffin and Joy have reached a pretty serious impasse, thanks largely to that nasty little critter in Griffin’s belly.
Slapstick is another tool in Russo’s repertory. The past drama of the parents’ marriage is relayed in comically dreadful flashbacks: the ghastly, manipulative graduate student who entraps the father after his divorce; the nightmare retirement dinner for the acidulous mother, who uses it as an opportunity to declare her real feelings; the casual disregard the parents, as renters, have for any house-owner’s property. Russo clearly enjoys himself as careers topple, good taste is outraged and professional ethics are mauled. By the second wedding, chaos appears in the present, and there’s a scene at the reception — involving a wheelchair, a rotten wooden ramp and a pair of truculent twin Marines — that Charlie Chaplin would have loved.
Family, family, family is the subject of “That Old Cape Magic.” The family is where the best — and the worst — things happen to us. Whether we embrace it or try to escape it, the family is at the center of our lives. Along with that voracious little worm of dissatisfaction, munching away. Which will triumph? Richard Russo roots for the family, but he knows the worm is there.
A version of this review appears in print on , on Page BR7 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: The Truro Accord. Today's Paper|Subscribe
A Conversation With Richard Russo AUG. 14, 2009