Customer Reviews

That Old Cape Magic

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Richard Russo made his mark in the literary world with his books Empire Falls and Bridge of Sighs. His newest novel, That Old Cape Magic, is about a middle-aged man that is having a difficult time coping with reality. Yet, while Jack Griffin is having trouble letting go of the past, the present is filled with slapstick-type comedy that Mr. Russo delivers with impeccable timing. And this, gives the reader a future filled with searches into their own life, lighten with comedy. It really was an enjoyment to read.

Well, let's get a little more in depth, shall we? As I mentioned prior, Jack Griffin, is the focal point of the story. He is a well-respected professor going through a mid-life crisis. At 55, he just lost his dad and will soon lose his daughter (she is getting married) this forces Jack to rethink his life. Most of the book is flashbacks from Jack's life. Jack's childhood was filled with despair. His parents were highly trained and brilliant professors, but their attitudes forced them to work demeaning jobs, well below their status.

As such, they also had a difficult time coping with reality. Always believing "the grass was greener on the other side" This leads to the title of the book. During the family's summer vacations, they would sing Frank Sinatra's song, That Old Black Magic, but since they vacationed in Cape Cod, they changed it to, That Old Cape Magic. This is key. The story begins with Jack driving over the same bridge his family crossed during those trips, singing that old tune, preparing to scatter his father's ashes on his way to his daughter's best friends' wedding.

The book's timeline is just about a year, and that year is packed full of wonderfully described locals, off-beat humor, soul searching, two weddings, incredible dialog, well-developed characters, and a plotline that delves the reader into their own search for answers. The book is good. Real good. But I could only give it 4-stars because it just doesn't quite live up to some of Russo's earlier works. Much like Jack and Joy Griffin, you can look at it two ways. Jack would say, this book deserves to be judged on its own merit. Joy would say, the author has raised the bar with his previous works and while good, That Old Cape Magic, falls just under that bar.

Since reading Straight Man, I have eagerly anticipated the release of each new Richard Russo novel, and That Old Cape Magic was no exception. The danger in anticipation, of course, is that the real thing just might not live up to your expectations. Following Bridge of Sighs and Empire Falls is no easy task, either. Can you guess where this humble review is headed? Yep, I was a bit disappointed in TOCM. Not overly so, and it's still a fine book and a very good story, and Russo still does his amazing job of capturing the essence of fascinating, but somehow still believable characters. His delicate mixing of humor and tragedy is still strong. His ability to get the reader into the scene is amazing, and he writes the marital argument better than anyone, I think. This book was missing some of the more comedic foils in Russo's other books, but he's still drawn together an impressive cast. So what's wrong with the book? Maybe it's just a bit short. Maybe there was more story to tell. That was the feeling I came away with. If you are already a Russo fan, by all means, pick it up and read it; it's better than 99% of the other novels on the shelf. If you are new to Russo, however, save this one for later. Go back to Nobody's Fool or The Risk Pool or the Pulitzer Prize winning Empire Falls. Solid three stars for now, but I reserve the right to come back and bump it a bit after I've reflected for a while.

I would like to think of Russo as being one of my favorite authors but don't feel qualified to make that statement since this is only the third book I've read by him....Empire Falls and Bridge of Sighs being the other two. But I will say that I've loved all three and look forward to going back and reading some of his earlier works. So when writing this review, I'm not sure if his writing style has changed or if he has, in fact, gotten better. All I know is that I think he's a great storyteller and That Old Cape Magic keeps proving that point over and over with each page you turn.

I've been so looking forward to August '09 because there were four books coming out that I've been eager to read....South of Broad by Pat Conroy, Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich, The White Queen by Philippa Gregory and That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo. I thought I'd start out with the Russo book and right off the bat I've hit a home run. I loved it!!!!!

There are many authors out there who write stories with very little dialogue and, most times, they are not my favorite books simply because the author's storytelling capabilities aren't good enough to pull this off. In Russo's book, I didn't care if the characters said one word to each other because the story he was telling was just so interesting that I failed to notice the lack of discourse.

And this is an author who definitely loves his bridges. As I've already mentioned, I've only read three of Russo's books but each one prominently mentions a bridge. In Empire Falls, it was the Iron Bridge that separated the mansion of the Whiting's from the rest of blue collar Empire Falls. The Bridge of Sighs is an actual bridge located in Venice and it's the last thing a prisoner walks over before being imprisoned in that famous city. Is Russo trying to tell us something? Do his characters cross over into their own prison of sorts as a penance when crossing these bridges? In this book, the bridge of note is the Sagamore Bridge. It represents two weeks of happiness to Jack Griffin's family as it leads to Cape Cod....their ultimate vacation place and their reprieve from the Mid f'n West as his parents liked to call it.

Russo has so many subplots in this book, one of which is the story of a childhood summer on Cape Cod where young Jack meets young Peter Browning and has the most idyllic two weeks of his life as Peter's family is everything Jack wishes his was and Peter is the friend he always wanted. Four decades later, as a would-be novelist, it is this story (Summer of the Brownings) that Jack is destined to tell and it's something he's had in the works for years but he can never seem to finish it. It makes me wonder if this story (That Old Cape Magic) is also something that Russo has been dying to tell for years and perhaps he too has been sitting on it for a long time.

This is only one of the stories Russo tells. He goes through Jack's life with his academically snobbish parents, Jack's marriage to someone he makes unhappy, Jack's desire to be rid of his parents' influence and, most importantly, his desire for a place to scatter their ashes. This book is chock full of everything an avid reader is looking for. I can't say enough about it.

On a personal note, I really related to the main character in this book being so close in age and experiencing two weeks of bliss each year while on summer vacations with my own family. In my case, it wasn't the Cape, it was Riverhead out near the Hamptons. Taking that car ride from Brooklyn, New York and traveling on Montauk Highway until we finally passed "The Big White Duck" which was, in a sense, our Sagamore Bridge, is something I vividly remember. From that point on, my three brothers and I knew everything was going to be happy. My mother liked my Dad more during those two weeks of the year and even thought her four kids weren't too much of a burden.

Russo talks about happiness perhaps being "a place". This gave me some food for thought because I clearly could relate to that place (Riverhead) bringing me more happiness as a young child than anything I had ever known. Are we all searching for that happy place? Surely Jack was in That Old Cape Magic. You'll have to read the book to see if Jack finds his "place of happiness".

Jack Griffin is an irresolute 50-something guy driving around with a lot of dead weight, both figuratively and literally. As the novel opens, he is placing the ashes of his dead father (9 months in the urn now) in the wheel well of his car, (they have been in the trunk) intending to scatter them in Cape Cod. He is meeting his wife and daughter there for the wedding of his daughter's best friend. During this time, the lacunae of memory begin to break free and combat with the credo and convictions of his consciousness and close orbit. The bittersweet reminiscence of family vacations on the Cape with his parents and the tart taste of the "Truro Accord" he made with his wife on their honeymoon over three decades ago provide the propellant fuel for this story of late middle-age angst and awakening.

Russo navigates the banks of this novel with a constrained and firm hand on the tiller, with not too much wind in the sails and with a decidedly inner-directed course. And he seamlessly flows from the sober and contemplative to an uproarious physical comedy, placing him in the same league as Bellow, Roth, and Irving, with a laconic protagonist possessing tragically comic (or comically tragic) inner demons. Griffin's inability to complete a short story that he started years ago, for example, opens a chasm to a dark abyss that plagues him up and down Route 6 through the Cape, through the story. A rehearsal dinner for another wedding is headed for an imbroglio when a wheelchair ramp does the unexpected.

Russo triumphs when he concentrates on Griffin, a thoroughly three-dimensional character whose perceptions and failings and desires are authentic and prismatic. It is Griffin's character that illuminates his parents' and underscores the pathos of his wife, Joy. When other characters are seen through Griffin's emotional turbulence, they are interesting and affecting. However, when given their own free rein, they tend to flatten, lose their luminescence. A few characters even come across as red herrings. You need to come to your own conclusions about this canvas of characters--I don't want to ruin anyone's reading pleasure by diagramming every character or their worthiness to the story and its themes. These complaints of mine do prevent me from considering this novel flawless, but the story nonetheless has a resounding quality, with writing as smooth as sea glass and as craggy as the Cape coastline.

I grew up not terribly far from the Cape, and Russo brought back the magic of my own family vacations--crossing the Sagamore Bridge; eating oysters in Wellfleet; the cathedral spires in Truro; the moss, grey, blue of the ocean; and running up and down the sand dunes in Ptown--the dunes speckled with bleached green grass under a pale, hot sun.

As an addendum, I recommend this novel for the over-40 or 45. It is seasoned with the many nuanced issues more connected to the late-middle passages of life.

This is not Bridge of Sighs, but it's definitely a worthwhile read. It lacks the laugh-out-loud moments from Straight Man and the painful moments and detail from Empire Falls, but what do you expect from a short story turned 272 page novel (it probably should have been a short story included in Best Short Stories of 2009, but who am I to say)? At one point while reading this book I set it down, went downstairs, and apologized to my wife for something stupid and trivial I had done earlier in the day. When a book prompts a reaction like that, something rings true. And the end... Those more cynical than I might call it ridiculous, obvious, etc., but I was very pleased.

Now on to either John Irving's new book, which will likely disappoint, or Philip Roth's, which couldn't... right?

Few authors have the ability to create characters so profound you feel like you've known them all your life. Updike could do that. These people stay with you long after you've read the book. They are flawed people who struggle though life like we all do, but somehow you can't help but like them because they deal with the same issues we all do. Russo is a master at reading their thoughts, and our own, and writing it all so deftly we find we're laughing and cringing and sympathizing and rooting for the characters and ourselves along the way.

Jack Griffin would like not to be carrying his parents' running commentary in his head and would like not to be carrying their ashes in the trunk of his car, but can't seem to get rid of either as he struggles to make sense of his life and how it has been impacted by their problems. The elusive idea of magic happiness he has both fought and sought all his life is in each of us and isn't easy to grip firmly enough to examine and cast aside, making room for the real thing. One of the highest praises of fiction is its ability, when done really well, to help us see inside ourselves. Russo can do that. We come to know Jack Griffin in this story, but the real gift, if we look, is that we come to know ourselves better, too.

According to writer Richard Russo, his new novel, That Old Cape Magic, began in Russo's mind as a short story, but expanded into its current shape when Russo concluded that there were too many elements and themes to explore. You can see its modest origins in the final work, because That Old Cape Magic feels like a Hoberman Sphere, one of those museum toys that, when pulled, expands a small ball to a much larger size. Here, the expanded story only serves to highlight the empty spaces in the structure.

The story is a simple one. Two weddings, spaced a year apart, serve as the contrast points in the relationship between married couple Jack and Joy Griffin. Their marriage is in far different shape at the second wedding, and the question at the center of the story is how they got from point A to B.

The novel also explores Jack's caustic relationship with his parents, failed academics and accomplished elitists, and focuses on how well Jack does or does not succeed in distancing himself from them.

The hallmarks of Russo's style - his clean prose, his ability to zoom in on the small but key moments in his characters' lives - are all to be found here. However, this small story, expanded to a novel's size, is loosely held together. The key scene, on which the fate of the Griffins' marriage pivots, is off-camera, with only minor references to it after the fact.

The overall effect is Russo Lite - it has all the pleasures to be found in a Richard Russo work, but you can't help but feel that the story would have been better served as a tightly-structured short story or a fully-developed novel. As a minor work from a major writer, it'll do, but it doesn't stick around long enough, or carry enough weight, to make more than a passing impression.

Richard Russo's last book was "Bridge of Sighs", but THAT title might aptly describe THIS book as well. The bridge, in this case, is a metaphorical one; the bridge between extended youth and middle age. And the sighs? That begs a question Russo himself asks: "Did the fact they weren't young anymore mean they had to be prematurely old? Did they have to be so settled? Wasn't that the same thing as "settling?"

Jack Griffin is the man at this bridge; a 50-something man who has been driving around for nearly a year with his father's ashes in an urn in his car trunk and the snobby and outright narcissistic voices of his parents in his head. He's already done everything he's supposed to do: leave a glamorous screenwriting L.A. job behind, take a position at a New England college his parents aspired to, marry a beautiful woman named Joy (no accident of naming) and have a beautiful and kind-hearted daughter. But lately, "Joy" has slipped farther and farther away. And Griffin is coming to grips with the fact that he just may be congenitally unhappy.

As Griffin prepares to attend his beloved daughter's wedding in Maine, he must face the unraveling of his own marriage. He must wrestle with questions of how he has come to be the husband and father he is instead of the one he meant to be. And he must examine how we create our own falsehoods. How we grow up and become capable of telling our parents "it's okay for you to be dead now because I think I'm going to be okay." How we determine when it's necessary to let go and when it's worth it to fight with everything we've got.

One senses that this is a more personal book for Richard Russo with a great deal of rueful understanding. It's not a perfect book; the ending dissolves into slapstick hilarity that contrasts with the more thoughtful tone of the first two-thirds. It's also a little too pat. And when Russo writes, in Part Two "how quickly it had all fallen apart", he's right; the dissolution of Jack Griffin's life seems way too quick.

But ultimately, the book is hopeful: as Russo writes, "There was nothing further to do but hope that chance, not known for compassion, would intervene in his undeserving favor." In Russo's fatalistic world, sometimes chance DOES intervene, and sometimes we, ourselves, intervene to form our own more joyful ending.

"That Old Cape Magic" by Richard Russo is the story of one late-middle-age man, Jack Griffin, and the crisis that unexpectedly hits his life when his elderly parents start to die. The book is a joy to read, but ultimately falls just a little shy of the author's usual greatness.

First, the good stuff. Russo returns to some familiar terrain in "That Old Cape Magic," as many of his main characters are denizens of academia. As any fan of "Straight Man" will attest, Russo's wit is at its best and sharpest when it comes to academia, and he uses that skill to great advantage in this book. It is also a poignant, moving story, and the story arc is just perfect. Griffin's crisis takes place neatly between two weddings, neither of which are his own but which both propel him, unwittingly, to face some of his darkest demons. At times while reading this book, I both cried for the depth of emotion and laughed for the absurdity of life.

However, having said all that, this little book suffers greatly from insufficient character development and incomplete back stories. What I see here is the seed of another "Bridge of Sighs" that just wasn't given a chance to flower. We learn almost nothing about the characters in this novel, other than Griffin and his parents, even when they are very important to the story. And even when it comes to them, what we do learn is not really sufficient. The reader's view is too narrowly limited by the Griffin's self-centered perspective. These characters and their situations are compelling enough to drive an 800 page tome, if given the chance, but instead they flit in and out of this brief work and barely make their mark. Perhaps Russo is just at his best in the long form, and it's as simple as that.

Let me be clear. Richard Russo could find a way to make the phone book compelling. Your time would not be wasted with any of his work. And "That Old Cape Magic" will move all but the coldest readers. It just doesn't feel like a full novel.

Richard Russo's latest novel is organized loosely around two weddings, but its focus is on two marriages of longer duration--those of the parents and grandparents of bride number two. The first wedding takes place on Cape Cod, where Jack Griffin, Hollywood scriptwriter turned English professor, once honeymooned and where he had always summered with his parents as a boy. Jack's parents, one of them dead already at the book's outset, were an odious pair of unhappily married narcissists for whom nothing--whether academic position or rental property or neighbor--was ever good enough. They both haunt him now, particularly his mother, spouting elitist commentary over the phone or in his imagination. Troubled by signs that his own marriage is failing ("What did you expect?" his mother might interject." She never did graduate work."), Jack finds himself coming to terms with his unwelcome inheritance of some of his parents' personality traits. His marital crisis, meanwhile, and time spent again in Cape Cod leave him reexamining his childhood, but there are hints that his memory may be imperfect, or that his childhood self may not have been privy to the whole story of, for example, his parents' marriage.

Russo's title refers to the song "That Old Black Magic," which his parents regularly sang on the way to the Cape, with some of the words changed. But the magic here likes in Russo's writing. It's a mystery to me how the author, using the same set of words that is available to the rest of us, can craft from them such a thought-provoking story and a cast of complex, flesh-and-blood characters. Russo is surely one of our finest writers.

-- Debra Hamel