Mason's Retreat [Paperback]

Christopher Tilghman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

A wealthy family takes up residence at their crumbling estate on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, where their love for one another begins to drift toward destruction when they stop communicating. Reprint. NYT. "

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Unfolding with the grandeur and suspenseful inevitability of real life, Mason's Retreat tells the story of a family on the Eastern shore of Maryland on the eve of World War II. Tilgham's prose is graceful and effortless, and his feel for the ebb and flow of familial relations is instinctual. Following up on the promise of his short story collection, In a Father's Place, Tilgham takes his rightful place among the best writers of American fiction. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Christopher Tilghman. Random, $22 (336p) ISBN 0-679-42712-0 A magnificent meditation on the dynamics of family relationships and the consequences of selfishness and pride down through generations, Tilghman's first novel places him securely in the ranks of our most accomplished writers. In 1936, at the height of the Depression, a nearly destitute Edward Mason, his business in England on the verge of bankruptcy, his marriage shaky, decides to return to America to try to wrest a living from his family's estate on Maryland's Eastern shore. The Retreat, as the mansion is called, is a rotting derelict, and the 1000-acre farm is badly in need of cash and a firm hand. With the help of two black servants, Edward's dutiful wife, Edith, restores the house; hostile, restless Sebastien, 14, discovers his identity on the farm, working alongside Robert, the black laborer, learning to sail and feeling himself centered and fulfilled for the first time. Hard-shelled, blundering Edward hates the place, however, and when war seems imminent in Europe, he returns to England to revitalize his factory by making aircraft parts. Simon, the Masons' second son, is devoted to his father and misses him terribly, but Sebastien thrives. Edith, who has been betrayed by Edward in the past, begins an affair with the son of an arriviste (the antithesis of the Mason preoccupation with class distinctions). When a newly prosperous Edward learns of the liaison and returns, determined to bear his family back to England, it is wrenchingly clear to Edith that in restoring the nuclear entity she will nurture Simon but deprive Sebastien of his spiritual haven. Sebastien's desperate strategy to avoid leaving the farm, ironically futile in any case because his father has secretly betrayed him in yet another way, crests on the current of portent that ripples under Tilghman's lyrical, resonant prose. As in his luminous story collection, In a Father's Place, Tilghman elegantly evokes both the physical landscape and the hermetic society and inbred culture of the Chesapeake Bay area, where old families live at the edge of ruin and distinguished bloodlines are all that is left of a proud and arrogant way of life. In supple and beautifully inflected prose, he makes astute observations about the enduring blight of racism, the fallibility of human nature, the sacrifice of children as hostages to fortune and the inevitability of retribution-all conveyed with an illuminating, unflinching but compassionate eye.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312155867
• ISBN-13: 978-0312155865
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,226,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars REFRESHINGLY DIFFERENT--DESCRIPTIVE-- GOOD STORY!, November 1, 1997

By 

JOHN C. WASSON - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mason's Retreat (Paperback)

AN EXCELLENT ACCOUNT OF AN AREA OF THE U.S. AND THE TIMES PRECEDING W.W.2.THE AUTHOR IS CLEARLY AWARE OF THE RURAL AREA OF THE EASTERN MARYLAND SHORE AND THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED THERE IN THE EARLY 1900'S. IWOULD DEFINITELY READ MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelously Rich Tale of a Family Adrift, August 22, 2005

By 

M. G Jackson (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mason's Retreat (Paperback)

A page-turning, psychological exploration,with the feel of a sprawling family epic in a spare 290 pages. Tilghman crafts insightful and absorbing portraits of an array of disparate characters to tell the story of Edward and Edith Mason, who return to America at the end of the Depression with their two sons after years living in England, and the musty Victorian atmosphere of both their family relationships and the expectations of their place in the world are a potent ingredient. Their fading pretentions of British class-superiority there have been devastated by bad business decisions and they have been forced to move to the yet-unseen Mason manse, the Retreat, on the Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Set in the two years leading up to the outbreak of World War II, the tensions among the four Mason family members ripple throughout their community, to include friends, lovers, and most strikingly, to their employees, including two black housekeepers and the farmhand Robert, whose racial situation in the Depression-era, rural South is rendered to clear-headed, stunning effect in many of the book's scenes.

The assured writing and psychological surprises reminded me of Thomas Mallon's "Henry and Clara", and the gathering sense of doom and inexorable tragedy, mirrored in the offstage story of Europe in 1939 reminded me again and again of Ian McEwan's "Atonement", highest of praise from me.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Beautiful, July 22, 1999

By 

Katherine Hall "Twintype" (Parkton, MD USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mason's Retreat (Paperback)

Mr. Tilghman has created a gem. In a deceptively simplistic way, he allows the reader to explore the nuances of the characters' relationships. As someone who is familiar with the Eastern Shore, every detail evoked this solitary but lovely place. This is a book you'll reflect on long after the last page is read.