Robb Forman Dew's cult first novel explores themes of familial and romantic bonds as it tells the story of a woman whose husband stays behind in New England while she and their children spend the summer in her Midwestern hometown.
The Howells family are revisited in the summer of 1991. David, 18, is preparing to go to Harvard and Sarah is now 13. A young woman, Netta Breckenridge, enters the family's lives and creates a fragile domesticity for the Howells.
Agnes Scofield, the heroine of Dew's lovely,low-key period piece, can join Mrs. Ramsay and Mrs. Bridge at the teatable of exquisitely etched literary matrons. A respectable Ohiowidow with three grown children, Agnes is beginning to carve out anindependent middle-aged life for herself (which inclu...
This is a quietly told account of families in a small Ohio town, focusing on two generations although starting with an earlier one and bringing in children born in the 1920s, so with characters from four generations total. Two brothers marry two sisters; they bear children simultaneously (as does...
“Why are you still in your pajamas on Christmas Day? We’re going to have champagne and everything. Why don’t you at least put on a pair of jeans?” But Jane turned on the television and wrapped herself in a blanket and watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She was uneasy and sullen and overcome by ...
