The best book I read was The Big House by George Howe Colt. It is subtitled A century in the Life of an American Summer Home. I found it in paperback at a Barnes & Noble on the "summer reading" tables. It is the real deal, and a National Book Award Finalist.
This is the story of a family's ownership of a Cape Cod summer house that begins its tale in 1902 as a large and empty lot on Wings Neck, "the last undeveloped peninsula on Buzzard's Bay". Set into a detailed and interesting background, the house and family emerge as protagonists in a struggle with time and change, and ultimately succumb to diverging family interests and economic reality and the house is sold for "money" in 1995, a weak and pale alternative to the coin of memory and experience that the house has provided to successive generations. This book is honest and does not blink at the moment of its error. This game was lost well before the ninth inning and neither heroics or pinch hitters could, in a single swing, save it. It is a beautifully written book, solid, thorough and complete, honest in the New England way of I'll tell you plenty and don't you ask any more," gracefully shifting from hard facts to kibuki shadows occasionally to express the uncomfortable while not actually saying it. This is very much a New England book, one that is bound to be a classic of both New England and Cape Cod literature.
If you are ready for a serious read, one that may tell you something about yourself even as it tells the story of others, then this is a book for you.
There you have it: three books in nine days; one forgettable, one informative and one a classic in the making. Reading is certainly one of the great pleasures in life.
The Art of the Steal
By Christopher Mason
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York
Available in hardcover and paperback
The Big House
By George Howe Colt
Scribner
Available in hardcover and paperback
Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2004 Issue
Some Summer Reading
none
