A funny, bittersweet novel about two weddings and a divorce, parents, family myth and memoryJack 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.
Author ProfileRichard 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.
ReviewsThe remarkable thing about this novel is its resemblance to real life. Russo creates a family that is utterly recognisable and unique…superb,Russo meditates on memory, ageing, inheritance, marriage, desire and the meaning of happiness... Written with humour and assurance,Wit, elegance.. Russo brings a familiar story to life with deftness and empathy,Russo has a knack for capturing the most intimate details in the lives of ordinary people.,A novel for people who are terrified of becoming their parents...comic genius...a dyspeptic romantic comedy... An utterly charming novel. If you always cry at weddings, you'll cry at this -- and laugh, too.,Thoroughly satisfying
