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That Old Cape Magic

3.25 of 5 stars 3.25 · rating details · 9,036 ratings · 1,749 reviews

Following Bridge of Sighs—a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as “an astounding achievement” and “a masterpiece”—Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.

Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his moth...more Following Bridge of Sighs—a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as “an astounding achievement” and “a masterpiece”—Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.

Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest. And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that’s now thirty years old and has largely come true. He’d left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they’d moved into an old house full of character; and they’d started a family. Check, check and check.

But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, their beloved Laura’s, on the coast of Maine, Griffin’s chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large, unruly family, and both he and she have brought dates along. How in the world could this have happened?

That Old Cape Magic is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has. The storytelling is flawless throughout, moments of great comedy and even hilarity alternating with others of rueful understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and its ending is at once surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written.(less)

Hardcover, 261 pages

Published August 4th 2009 by Knopf

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Aug 14, 2009 Will Byrnes rated it 3 of 5 stars

The title refers to a modification of the song “That Old Black Magic,” a tune sung with verve and hope by narrator Jack Griffin’s parents when they would cross the bridge into Cape Cod every summer for one month of relief from eleven months of misery. Each of the book’s eleven chapters connects to some aspect of Cape Cod in Jack’s life, from summer vacations there as a kid, to his honeymoon to the wedding of his daughter’s friend, and later his daughter’s wedding.

Place is important to the story...more The title refers to a modification of the song “That Old Black Magic,” a tune sung with verve and hope by narrator Jack Griffin’s parents when they would cross the bridge into Cape Cod every summer for one month of relief from eleven months of misery. Each of the book’s eleven chapters connects to some aspect of Cape Cod in Jack’s life, from summer vacations there as a kid, to his honeymoon to the wedding of his daughter’s friend, and later his daughter’s wedding.

Place is important to the story beyond Cape Cod. Jack’s parents, both from upstate New York, aspired to live and teach in Ivy, or near-Ivy League institutions in the northeast, but their Ivy-League degrees are not sufficient to gain them Ivy-League careers and they are relegated to the “mid-fucking-west.” His wife’s parents, and thus her familial connections, are in Republican, suburban California. Living in Connecticut offers strains to her as well.

Along with Cape Cod as a central image, the relationship of Jack to his parents is a core concern, familiar turf for Russo. How much of any of us is truly our own? How much are we influenced, formed by our parents? How much of them can we set aside, escape, embrace and still be separate people? How much of what we want is really our own, and not a carry-forward of our parents dreams? In career, in marriage, in family? Jack struggles with trying to live his own life. His parents are always in his thoughts. He is even toting his father’s ashes about with him, planning to scatter them in the cape, struggling to actually do the deed.

Jack has been married to Joy for 34 years, and they have had their ups and downs. Once a Hollywood screenwriter of modest accomplishment, he returned east for a college teaching post. His dream or his parents? His dream or Joy’s, who had wanted him to move away from screenwriting to teaching? The pull of LA remains strong, work for him, family for her.

The central action of the story centers on the viability of Jack and Joy’s marriage. Personally, I felt it hitting a bit too close to home at times. Not so much in the specifics. My life has been very different from Jack’s, but we are the same age and have both gone through the deep emotional scarring that long-term relationships can entail. As a veteran of those wars, I recognize the verity of long, silent car rides, uncomfortable silences, changes in how one views one’s mate, old secrets exposed, private tears seen. I suppose it is a good thing that Russo made me squirm with this familiarity. That his writing hits home in so personal a way reinforces the fact that he knows of what he speaks.

There is significant craft at work here, as one would expect from a master writer of Russo's caliber. He parallels the pining of Jack’s partner Tommy for Jack’s wife, Joy, with that of young (ironically named) Sunny Kim, for his daughter Laura. He offers significant hooks to parental engagement, from the ashes Jack is toting, and never quite getting around to scattering, to the voice of his mother in his head. Water is used for its lachrymose and rebirth purposes. Is it stretching too far to wonder if Jack Griffin was named as he was in support of his dual nature, as part Hollywood guy and part academic? There are bits of humor here, and some are pretty funny, but I found that in the overall feel of the book, most of the humor did not do much for me. Maybe it was just my personal reaction, having been brought back to dark days. For folks who did not vibrate with such feelings it is probably a lot funnier.

This is no Empire Falls or Bridge of Sighs. While Russo offers a multi-generational view of a family here, the story is more individual and less social, less big-picture historical and more how the history of one family affects their descendants today, Richard Russo light. That works too.
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Oct 21, 2009 Orrin Laferte rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the first book by Richard Russo that I have read and I know he has had some great reviews on previous publications. This was just an OK book for me. It reminded me of a 21st Century Updike or Cheevers. There was almost as much drinking, cheating and dysfunction, but not as many interesting people. The academic snobbery hasn't changed with the century. Other than the male protagonist's wife , daughter and temporary girlfriend, I didn't like or relate to any of the characters in this book....more

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Aug 06, 2009 Anderson's Bookshops rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: carols-shelf, sallys-shelf, susans-shelf, mary-ks-shelf

Sally said: "This Russo book is a funny, poignant look at a man's mid-life crisis as he travels Cape Cod and his memories. Like the author's Straight Man, this is a light, amusing story that will be sure to please his fans. The main character is carrying around...more This Russo book is a funny, poignant look at a man's mid-life crisis as he travels Cape Cod and his memories. Like the author's Straight Man, this is a light, amusing story that will be sure to please his fans. The main character i...more Sally said: "This Russo book is a funny, poignant look at a man's mid-life crisis as he travels Cape Cod and his memories. Like the author's Straight Man, this is a light, amusing story that will be sure to please his fans. The main character is carrying around...more This Russo book is a funny, poignant look at a man's mid-life crisis as he travels Cape Cod and his memories. Like the author's Straight Man, this is a light, amusing story that will be sure to please his fans. The main character is carrying around lots of baggage - literally the ashes of his father and is examining his parents horrific (in a funny way) behavior. I recommend it."

Mary K rated it: 4 stars

Read in June, 2009
No one writes about human frailties better than Richard Russo, who questions whether we really know ourselves in this funny (Russo funny? Yes!), bittersweet novel. Jack Griffin is fighting a mid-life crisis - he and his wife have are growing apart, he longs for the job of his youth, his mother is constantly harping in his ear, and he can't quite let go of his father - literally. With his daughter's engagement, he begins to reminisce about his own parents and his relationship with them.

06/19/09 Susan Buschmann rated it: 4 stars

Maybe I missed it before, but was Richard Russo ever this funny? That Old Cape Magic was a little more light-hearted, even downright slapstick in one memorable place. Jack Griffin is caught in an emotional impasse between weddings, you might say. His marriage is in jeopardy and the urns of "remains" in the wheel-wells of the rental car may have something to do with it. It's about the complex relationships we have with our parents (and maybe our spouse's parents) and how long it takes us to resolve them. Too bad the release date isn't til August as the setting on Cape Cod would make it a delicious summer read, but that by no means indicates that it doesn't offer plenty to think about. Look forward to that rehearsal dinner chapter.

06/15/09 Carol K. rated it: 3 stars

This was such a surprise coming from this wonderful author! At first glance "That Old Cape Magic" appears to be simply a story about a 55 yr. old man in a mid-life crisis. However, it is so much more than that. It is a study of love, marriage, the importance of family and the inescapable influence of parents on their children. Jack Griffin's anecdotes about his upbringing describe 2 very unlikable parents, who, he convinces himself, he doesn't like. It is remarkably well done, with the trademark humor that is vintage Russo.(less)

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Sep 03, 2010 Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hilarious! Slapstick! Russo?
Yes, so cleverly written. Loved it.

From the NYTimes Book Review (Roxanna Robinson):

"Family, family, family is the subject of “That Old Cape Magic.” The family is where the best — and the worst — things happen to us. Whether we embrace it or try to escape it, the family is at the center of our lives. Along with that voracious little worm of dissatisfaction, munching away."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/boo...

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Aug 18, 2011 Drea rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I find Richard Russo's greatest strength to be the humanity he gives to his working-class, somewhat crude, and deeply flawed characters in the blue-collar New England and upstate New York towns he generally chronicles.

That said, this is a book centered on the highly cerebral problems of a middle-aged, middle-class academic going through a life crisis. So...yeah, not so much.

Russo's writing ability still shines through, but the characters just don't have that sympathetic spark that binds the read...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Claire Caterer rated it 4 of 5 stars

I fell in love with Richard Russo when I read EMPIRE FALLS. This is a much smaller book, both in scope and in heft. While it didn't overwhelm me the way EMPIRE FALLS did, it did leave me a lot to think about. In the story, Jack Griffin attends two weddings, and in between them considers his marriage, his parents, and his past.

The first 30 pages or so didn't really grab me, and I might have put it down but for the fact that I was going to see Russo speak at an authors' event here in Kansas City,...more

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Jul 14, 2010 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First impressions:

What really comes to the fore in a sort of throwaway novel like this is just how good a writer Russo is. Even with a story that is not meant to be overly complex, and isn't weighed down with a large cast of characters, Russo is such a capable craftsman.
When I, as a person who (sadly) can't write, think of the writing process I think of sitting down, looking around the room, taking a deep breath, and starting to type.
Russo dashes this image completely.
I saw an interview with h...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: solid-recommendation, humorous-academic

Be forewarned: When you gaze into the eyes of your future mate and proclaim "I do," odds are that you're tying the knot with three people, not one. Richard Russo's recent novel explores the inconvenient fact that most marriages involve two players on the field and four players on the bench; each partner's parents are shadow participants in the enterprise, despite their physical distance or animate state.

Jack Griffin and his wife, Joy, have weathered a 30-year union with relative success. The mar...more Be forewarned: When you gaze into the eyes of your future mate and proclaim "I do," odds are that you're tying the knot with three people, not one. Richard Russo's recent novel explores the inconvenient fact that most marriages involve two players on the field and four players on the bench; each partner's parents are shadow participants in the enterprise, despite their physical distance or animate state.

Jack Griffin and his wife, Joy, have weathered a 30-year union with relative success. The marriage has had its ups and downs, but each of them has come to accept the other's perceived idiosyncrasies with equanimity and the occasional rolled eyeball. Griffin can't relate to Joy's effusively close relationship with her parents and siblings; he perceives it as unnatural and mildly obnoxious. Nonetheless, he endures her daily phone chats with her sisters and attends backslapping holiday reunions with only an occasional complaint ("I guess what I can't understand is why we can't have one holiday with just us."). Joy, on the other hand, can't understand Griffin's desire to avoid contact with his own parents altogether. She concedes that his childhood memories of constant marital bickering were less than ideal, but family is family, and their only child Laura deserves to know both sets of grandparents. Nonetheless, Joy sighs and goes along with Griffin's strategy of avoidance, even after his father dies and his mother seeks to mend old ties.

Griffin's obsessive attempt to avoid his mother's manipulative intrusions and his father's influence beyond the grave seems doomed to failure: he finds himself involved in heated mental arguments with them that take place in his head as he drives down the highway; he catches himself repeating his father's physical mannerisms and adopting his mother's cynical view of human nature; he realizes that his weathered Connecticut farmhouse and teaching post at a toney East Coast school is a realization of everything his parents wished for, but never attained ( snobby academics who graduated from the Ivy League, his parents felt permanently cheated when relegated to the "Mid-f***ing West" for their entire teaching careers). Griffin can't even bring himself to disperse his father's ashes, which have been residing in an urn in the wheel well of his car for over a year.

Griffin's parents are major characters in the novel and provide most of its laugh-out-loud humor. The best chapters in the book involve the contentious history of their marriage and the quirky love/hate nature of their relationship. The elder Griffins share an amazingly similar view of life: they've been screwed over and there's nothing to be done for it. Their yearly summer pilgrimages to Cape Cod, where they torture themselves by imagining how life might have been had their professional fortunes been otherwise, is punctuated by wistful searches through the local real estate guide, where every house they study is either far beyond their means or something so dilapidated that "they wouldn't have it, even as a gift." Unfortunately, the elder Griffins also share a fierce sense of competition. When Griffin's father begins to indulge in philandering, Griffin's mother responds in kind. When Mr. Griffin falls in love with an intellectually challenged graduate student young enough to be his granddaughter, Mrs. Griffin is torn between outrage and secret satisfaction at the girl's bovine dullness. Griffin's mother puts up with her husband's infidelities for a preternaturally long time because she's afraid that once divorced, he could move away from the dreaded Midwest and find a better teaching position than she enjoys, a fact that would drive her crazy. They cling to each other in a marital death spiral until they can't take it any more, but even after the divorce each ex-spouse follows the trajectory of the other's life with intense and spiteful interest.

Will Griffin ever be able to escape his obsession with his parents' shortcomings? Will Joy finally snap and refuse to put up with Griffin's growing tendency to look at everything in life as something beyond his means or "something that he wouldn't have, even as a gift?" Can any of us ever escape eventually becoming our parents? Do yourself a favor and read this amusing, intelligently written book to find out. (Note: the storyline, which is book-ended by two colorful weddings, begs to be made into a movie, which makes sense; Richard Russo is also a successful screenwriter.)(less)

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Sep 16, 2009 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Russo said in an interview that he’d originally intended for this to be a short story. Then he wrote a scene where Jack Griffin, his main character, was on the side of the road talking to his shrew of a mother on the phone when a seagull flew by and dropped a calling card on his head. At that point any tidy resolutions to Griffin’s problems weren’t going to work – further development was going to be needed. But at 261 pages, we could have used more. To be honest, it felt a little thin. I say thi...more Russo said in an interview that he’d originally intended for this to be a short story. Then he wrote a scene where Jack Griffin, his main character, was on the side of the road talking to his shrew of a mother on the phone when a seagull flew by and dropped a calling card on his head. At that point any tidy resolutions to Griffin’s problems weren’t going to work – further development was going to be needed. But at 261 pages, we could have used more. To be honest, it felt a little thin. I say this at the same time I claim Russo as a personal favorite; I’m grateful for dollops of any size. Had this been my first of his books, I’d have nary a critical word. But fans know the heights he can scale.

Griffin is a 55-year-old academic, a former screenwriter, a husband, and a son, but doesn’t seem fully engaged in any of his roles. With parents like his, pulling away was understandable. They were academics themselves, Ivy-leaguers appointed beneath their station in the Mid-effing-west, with a haughty disdain for their intellectual inferiors which to them included pretty much everyone. At times they were laughably bad (one of the book’s great strengths). Griffin disengaged from them, but not as much as he wanted to believe. This was a major theme, even as they became ashes in urns. Troubles in his marriage were harder to figure. His wife was not the problem, though; that much we surmise.

Russo is usually so good at developing characters. This time, too, he gets into heads and tells revealing stories about Griffin and the gang, but … (you knew there’d be a but) at times he makes Griffin out to be borderline obtuse. If Griffin, in one instance, can write so knowingly about people, as he did in a very good story within the story about a boyhood friend at the Cape, how can he be, at other times, so heedless, turning even allies against him? Russo characters are often flawed, but rarely lacking in people smarts or self-awareness as Griffin seemed to be. Then again, maybe that was just part of the dark humor that ran throughout. Irony is another guess, what with the writer/professor falling short in the insight department, unable to read people.

Despite the brevity, many of the secondary characters were memorable. Griffin’s daughter, who was getting married in Act III of the book, was honest and kind—-more like her mother, Joy. Joy’s family stood out, too. Her knuckleheaded brothers, twin Marine MP’s, were a hoot. I was also interested in a character named Sunny Kim, a Korean immigrant and friend of Griffin’s daughter since childhood. He was smart, respectful, and repressed, but Russo went beyond stereotypes to give us a glimpse into a rich inner life, too. (Mr. Russo, since you’re likely to stop by soliciting feedback from reviewers like me, please consider a follow-up story focusing on Sunny. I have a similar suggestion involving Rub from Nobody’s Fool.)

When it’s all said and done, this is a very satisfying read. I might have a few quibbles about Griffin and his plight, but in the end it’s recognizably Russovian, which is always a good thing.
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Oct 03, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nov-dec-2009

Set in Cape Cod, California, and Maine rather than upstate New York, That Old Cape Magic is smaller in scope than Russo's previous novels but nonetheless contains Russo's trademark psychological complexity. While reviewers disagreed about the novel's overall success, they concurred that Griffin's quarrelsome, bitter parents -- whom Griffin can't seem to shed -- steal the show. Another favorite was the story within a story called "The Summer of the Brownings," about Griffin's childhood friendship...more

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Jun 22, 2011 Lisa rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Did Richard Russo fire his editor? I don't care how many Pulitzer Prizes you have; after foisting a book this clumsy on your faithful public, you should be forced to read Elmore Leonard's "Ten Rules of Writing" until your eyes water.

Characters' quotes shouldn't be bookended with long phrases that explain to us what mood they're in when they say them. Readers shouldn't trip over unnecessary verbs that take the place of the perfectly adequate "said" (sneered, sniffed, sighed, echoed, chimed in......more

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Oct 17, 2012 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Okay, I have had a heck of a time with tech issues trying to post on this. Here goes (finally): Oh, Mr. Russo, how is it we have not met before now? I have said that I haven't liked a lot of what I have had to read for my grad class but being introduced to Russo made it all worth it. He writes so well and his characters are so well developed and just so human. I found myself identifying with each character, even when I didn't completely like or agree with them. He also weaves humor in effortless...more

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Sep 05, 2009 Margaret rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love Richard Russo. This is my 3rd Russo read in a year, and I'm hooked. That Old Cape Magic is wise and very funny. Spoken in first person, we really get inside the skin of Jack Griffen, learning to empathize with all his baggage around his parents and how their stormy relationship and vacations in Cape Cod gets him stuck in behaviors that even he doesn't like, but can't change. The writing comes from a mature and knowing place that looks at people and loves them despite in spite of their wea...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012books

So, this little book said a whole lot about how one's relationship with one's parents and one's parents relationship with each other influences one's marriage.

I enjoyed it and it gave me a lot to think about.

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, humor, los-angeles, satire, academia, dysfunctional-family, massachusetts

A sweet and sardonic parable about how finding happiness in life is challenged by the continual collision of past and future with the present. Jack Griffin is happy in his marriage, his home in Connecticut, the transition of his career as a Hollywood scriptwriter to a college teaching post, and his thriving daughter. In the course of the novel, as we move backward and forward in time, all these foundations of his life are threatened. At the beginning, his return to Cape Cod to attend a wedding o...more

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May 06, 2013 Winnie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can’t improve on this review from Publishers Weekly:
"Crafting a dense, flashback-filled narrative that stutters across two summer outings to New England (and as many weddings), Russo (Empire Falls) convincingly depicts a life coming apart at the seams, but the effort falls short of the literary magic that earned him a Pulitzer. A professor in his 50s who aches to go back to screenwriting, Jack Griffin struggles to divest himself of his parents. Lugging around, first, his father's, then both hi...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Cmorice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Professeur dans une université du Connecticut, Jack Griffin est invité à Cape Cod avec sa femme Joy, le temps d’un mariage. C’est l’occasion rêvée d’une escapade en amoureux. Mais le week-end, qui s’annonçait enchanteur, se révèle dévastateur. Il sonne le glas du couple, réveille les espoirs déçus, les conflits jamais résolus.
Joy regagne ensuite le Connecticut, tandis que Jack part pour Los Angeles. Un an plus tard, le mariage de leur propre fille scelle leurs retrouvailles. Elles sont d’autant...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Megan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first book I have read by Richard Russo. It is the story of Jack Griffin, a college professor and the son of college professors, as he tries to make sense of his childhood memories of his parents and their differing memories, his marriage, and the coming marriage of his only daughter.

It's a coming of age novel, in many ways, as Griffin comes to terms with his relationship with his parents after their deaths, and the nature/nurture of who he has become as an adult.

There are some very...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Mike Gilbert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I love Richard Russo's stories - though they always pain me to read them. They have that quality of resonating in our my consciousness and reminding me - not matter how tangentially - to my own life. And that reminder usually is what scares me. Ideally, it is not so much coincidence that his characters and subjects remind me so much of my own life in the northeast, but rather his genius that lends his characters and stories have that depth of complexion that cause everyone to go - oh - that's j...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Sherry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What could be wrong with this book? The writing is very good, as one would expect from Richard Russo. The plot is barely there, but that isn’t an issue. The characters are vivid—and that’s the problem. Nearly to a man (or woman), the characters are unlikable, and they are so vividly drawn that the reader feels like they’re jumping off the page—unfortunately, because these are not characters with whom you’d ever want to interact in real life.

The protagonist is Jack, whose parents are so nasty, a...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Catherine Woodman added it

I LOVED this book. Maybe it is a factor of where I am at in life and where Richard Russo is--where this comes from in him, and what it speaks to in me, maybe that accounts for why so many people either love or hate this book. I do think that loosing elderly parents is hard, and that it is hard in a way that losing your parents 'prematurely' is not. All their irritating, difficult aspects have solidified over time--gotten worse and more in your face, and how you have dealt with that over time has...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Bobbi Woods rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Richard Russo is one of my favorite writers--after loving both Bridge of Sighs and Empire Falls, I knew that I had to read this one. Jack Griffen struggles with mid life as he is struggling with his marriage and haunted by memories of his cynical, selfish college professor parents. Definitely one of those books that is more character development than plot, but of course I like that. The characters and scenes are quite vivid--the story takes place mostly in New England. If there is ever a movie,...more

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Mar 30, 2011 Brett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jack Griffin is a screenwriter/college professor who has his father's ashes in his trunk. He and his wife attend the wedding of his daughter's childhood friend and he plans to scatter the ashes while he's on Cape Cod as well. He has a lifetime of memories on Cape Cod though and thoughts of his past and realizations in the present will cast some doubt on his future.

This book is full of interesting characters who are developed as well as to be expected in a 261 page book. Jack Griffin, who is ref...more

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Feb 26, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more 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. (less)

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Jan 25, 2011 Josh Ang rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Russo has written another heartwarming novel about love, marriage and familial relationships. His usual candour and humour ensures that the story does not degenerate into a sappy tale about bitter old folks finding their second wind.

Lead character Jack Griffin finds out that he is very much a product of his parents, exhibiting the very traits he finds loathsome in them and also relating to his wife of 34 years in much the same way his parents did with each other. His seemingly perfect marriage...more Russo has written another heartwarming novel about love, marriage and familial relationships. His usual candour and humour ensures that the story does not degenerate into a sappy tale about bitter old folks finding their second wind.

Lead character Jack Griffin finds out that he is very much a product of his parents, exhibiting the very traits he finds loathsome in them and also relating to his wife of 34 years in much the same way his parents did with each other. His seemingly perfect marriage is not immune from the infidelities that riddled his parents'.

A screen writer turned college professor, Griffin realises that in trying to rebel against his professor parents he still unwittingly takes the same career path as them. Even in death their voices (especially his mom's) permeate his consciousness and inform his actions.

The structure of the novel is symmetrical in the way it is divided into 2 parts; both with weddings at the centerpiece and showing the main characters, albeit aligned in different permutations and combinations over the space of a year.

The title of the book is based on the old song "That Old Black Magic" that Griffin's parents used to sing while looking for their ideal rental summer cottage on Cape Cod.

When Griffin's own marriage unravels, he finds himself reminiscing about his childhood on the Cape, even the unhappy bits which he realises are also part fiction which he romanticises. History can be rewritten and is never reliable, depending on whose version one takes - and even so, can still change, when time intervenes. Griffin finds that happening to his account of the "The Summer of the Brownings", a pivotal summer in his childhood experience.

At the heart of it, the novel is about finding the moments of grace that push us and our relationships back to equilibrium. Captivating in characterisation and realistic in portrayal of middle-aged marriage, the novel works because Russo is always sympathetic to his characters, no matter how flawed they are.
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Oct 05, 2010 Pamela Huxtable rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, pop-fiction

I have enjoyed Russo's Bridge of Sighs, and I loved Empire Falls. I was a little apprehensive about reading another male mid-life crisis book. I'm glad I read this one.

While I don't believe Russo is making any new statements about families and marriage, his prose is just beautiful. I also very much enjoyed the structure of the book, which is bookended by 2 weddings. The descriptions of the story-within-the story are also fascinating and resonant, especially as the character of Griffin explores...more

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Sep 26, 2010 Nadeen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Somewhere in the middle of this book, a quote from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina stuck in my head and stayed there echoing Russo's writing. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Except in Russo's case, the happy families are non-existant and the unhappy families alike in their own haunting destructive ways. Even happiness foreshadowed some future imagined sadness, realized of not. The families and people are all nuanced but alike in their sadness and the weigh...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Stephen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Russo's novel starts well and has funny and wise moments throughout--e.g. "You aren't a real adult until you have a mortgage you can't afford" (p.75). However, I found the ending an all-too-easy capitulation to those twin American beliefs: the power of marriage and the family as a refuge, and the psychological insight that can cure almost any neurosis. Plenty of American novels end with a return to the bosom of the family or with an insight that quickly resolves some serious problems, so why be...more Russo's novel starts well and has funny and wise moments throughout--e.g. "You aren't a real adult until you have a mortgage you can't afford" (p.75). However, I found the ending an all-too-easy capitulation to those twin American beliefs: the power of marriage and the family as a refuge, and the psychological insight that can cure almost any neurosis. Plenty of American novels end with a return to the bosom of the family or with an insight that quickly resolves some serious problems, so why be surprised or disappointed? The answer is that Russo, throughout so much of "The Old Cape Magic" displays as much hard-nosed cynicism as any French writer I know. Maybe he realizes that we Americans need a happy ending, even if it's not particularly convincing. Moreover, this is a novel about academics, the type that has proliferated since creative writing in the U.S.A. has come under the wing of the Academy. Let's face it, academics are a very easy target, although I wonder, as an academic myself, if we are any more eccentric or interesting than, say, a group of truck drivers or cocktail waitresses. Enough criticism . . . I am forgetting that I enjoyed much of this novel. Griffin, the main character, is the son of two snobbish, semi-dysfunctional English professors who after graduating from Yale could only find jobs at a university in the "Mid-fucking-West." He teaches screen writing at an eastern university and even spent a stint in L.A. doing the real thing, much to the distress of his parents. In fact, he is haunted by the memory of those parents and can't quite get rid of their ashes, which he carries around in his trunk for most of the novel. His marriage, after thirty-plus years, begins to fall apart, and both he and his wife drift into relationships with others. Then their daughter, Laura, gets married and Griffin has that famous insight--gosh, I guess, despite all their quirkiness and jerkiness I really loved my parents after all. That insight serves him well and the novel ends with a flurry of optimism. Russo is a fine writer, no doubt about that, so maybe there will be a sequel in which Griffin realizes the marriage really doesn't work after all, dumps his wife Joy (does that name tell us something?) and heads off to sit in the sun in Mexico and drink tequila until the Big Sunset. (less)

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Sep 03, 2010 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wasn't prepared for all the emotions in this book! It kind of had me on a rollercoaster and not in a bad way, but it does kind of stay with you even when you're not reading. At first, I couldn't stand Griffin and wasn't sure I even wanted to finish the book because it was kind of depressing, and his weak personality and his domineering mother drove me crazy...but something told me to keep going, and then I wanted things to come out good for him in the end and was really, really glad I finished...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Sterlingcindysu rated it 3 of 5 stars

Another reviewer said it best, it was "thin"--would have been a great short story, but the second half really seemed lacking in substance and details. (copied review) The book's two-part structure is simple and elegant: two weddings, a year apart, the first on Cape Cod, the second in Maine. Russo's focus in both parts is on Jack Griffin, a 57-year-old English professor who's having a "middle-age meltdown." Even while the wedding march plays for members of the younger generation, he's busy fumbli...more

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About Richard Russo

Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville, he earned a B.A. (1967), a M.F.A. (1980), and a Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Arizona.

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“He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.” — 4 people liked it

“Though here his voice faltered, because he knew as well as she did what came next, what words came next. If he could speak them, he might even convince her they were true, as his father had convinced his mother that Browning summer. It was the worst lie there was, imprisoning and ultimately embittering the hearer, playing upon her terrible need to believe. He could feel the I love you forming on his lips. Would he have said it if she hadn't interrupted?” — 4 people liked it

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