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Memory and Desire
From the acclaimed storyteller, a propulsive tale of desire, betrayal, duty, and infidelity—and the explosive consequences of a buried passion
The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage. His wife, Maureen, lace-curtain Irish while he was from Appalachia, is a brilliant scholar who is also bipolar and fragile. Luke has never told her about his youthful passion or the infant that Corinne, barely out of her teenage years, gave up at birth when they split and he went to war. Maureen’s illness has meant that she and Luke have foregone having children of their own. In Luke’s mind, she cannot find out about Corinne or the child.
Meanwhile, in Miami, where Luke works as the managing editor at a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital era, his star investigative reporter is slowly piecing together a blockbuster story zeroing in on the corrupting influence of cartel money in south Florida. The evidence she has uncovered links a flashy real estate developer, a legacy of murky land dealings, and the stink of political corruption in Luke’s own refuge, Key West.
The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage. His wife, Maureen, lace-curtain Irish while he was from Appalachia, is a brilliant scholar who is also bipolar and fragile. Luke has never told her about his youthful passion or the infant that Corinne, barely out of her teenage years, gave up at birth when they split and he went to war. Maureen’s illness has meant that she and Luke have foregone having children of their own. In Luke’s mind, she cannot find out about Corinne or the child.
Meanwhile, in Miami, where Luke works as the managing editor at a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital era, his star investigative reporter is slowly piecing together a blockbuster story zeroing in on the corrupting influence of cartel money in south Florida. The evidence she has uncovered links a flashy real estate developer, a legacy of murky land dealings, and the stink of political corruption in Luke’s own refuge, Key West.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published September 5, 2023
17 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Philip Caputo
37 books321 followersAmerican author and journalist. Author of 18 books, including the upcoming MEMORY AND DESIRE (Sept. 2023). Best known for
A Rumor of War,
a best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Website: PhilipCaputo.com
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 21, 2023
Read my mini-review here: http://librarycalm.blogspot.com/2023/....
September 16, 2023
Set in South Florida in the year 2000, the novel is a bit of departure for Caputo as it is principally a love story. Luke Brubaker is the managing editor of a major Miami daily newspaper. He reconnects with an old girlfriend after 30 years and together provide emotional and financial support for their twenty something son who is a recent parolee.
Predictively they rekindle their relationship in Key West. Brubaker's wife is manic depressive who he shields from a lot of the realities of his life.
Caputo also throws in a newspaper angle. As Brubaker's ace investigative reporter uncovers a corrupt Florida land deal that is financed by a Colombian drug cartel. A local politician who is Brubaker's friend gets caught up in these machinations.
Solid and servicable.
Predictively they rekindle their relationship in Key West. Brubaker's wife is manic depressive who he shields from a lot of the realities of his life.
Caputo also throws in a newspaper angle. As Brubaker's ace investigative reporter uncovers a corrupt Florida land deal that is financed by a Colombian drug cartel. A local politician who is Brubaker's friend gets caught up in these machinations.
Solid and servicable.
September 12, 2023
Philip Caputo left me wanting to know more.
The main characters each had flaws, Luke - his wife Maureen - his lover Corinne. Several twists and a turn and I was done reading but still have questions.
That's what a good book does makes you think.
The main characters each had flaws, Luke - his wife Maureen - his lover Corinne. Several twists and a turn and I was done reading but still have questions.
That's what a good book does makes you think.
November 11, 2023
I have read several of Caputo’s novels, starting with Rumor of War, and have never been disappointed. As I neared the 3/4 mark of Memory and Desire, I was thinking a 5 star rating. Unfortunately, the story did NOT end with the bang I hoped for. Still recommended, but only 3 1/2 stars.
February 12, 2024
Great writing, a bit of a downer but hopeful at the end.
February 24, 2024
Man struggles with dueling challenges of mental health and middle age.
September 23, 2025
Not enough that newspaperman Lucas Blackburn is bedeviled by an academic wife who for all her brilliance as a Joycean scholar is mentally unstable, but from out of the blue he hears from a long-ago lover, Corinne, with news of a child they'd put up for adoption. She's been in touch with him, she says, and he’s now in jail on drug charges but about to get out on parole and she's looking for help with him once he gets out.
Enough in just that to make for a novel in itself, but there’s also a secondary plot in Phil Caputo’s new novel, “Memory and Desire,” in which Luke’s star reporter at his Miami newspaper is investigating a financial scheme involving a drug cartel that looks to implicate an old friend of Lucas’. Especially interesting you’d think that storyline would be for me with my having been a newspaper person myself, and indeed it did hold a certain interest for me, with its depiction of the inner workings of a newsroom, but I’m enough of a financial dunce that Caputo could have spelled out the details of the scheme in Dick and Jane terms and I’d still have been mystified.
Much more interesting to me was the depiction of Luke's wife, Maureen, who so fascinated me with her literary eruditeness and psychological trauma that I thought the novel could have stood simply as a profile of her. But as it was, for all the anxiety that she makes for Luke, how a putdown of hers of a friend's wife even makes for a shattering development for Luke, she doesn't really get that much time onstage; she even at one point drops out completely when she takes up an academic position abroad.
Still, even with her limited exposure, Caputo does well by her, as he does with Corinne, even if there’s a would-be surprise with Corinne that signaled itself to me well before it plays itself out in the novel's final pages. And pre-ordained as the finale with Maureen might seem, it comes with a suggestion of a degree of enduring responsibility to a loved one that is sobering to say the least.
All in all, an engrossing and extremely well-written novel, Caputo’s latest.
Enough in just that to make for a novel in itself, but there’s also a secondary plot in Phil Caputo’s new novel, “Memory and Desire,” in which Luke’s star reporter at his Miami newspaper is investigating a financial scheme involving a drug cartel that looks to implicate an old friend of Lucas’. Especially interesting you’d think that storyline would be for me with my having been a newspaper person myself, and indeed it did hold a certain interest for me, with its depiction of the inner workings of a newsroom, but I’m enough of a financial dunce that Caputo could have spelled out the details of the scheme in Dick and Jane terms and I’d still have been mystified.
Much more interesting to me was the depiction of Luke's wife, Maureen, who so fascinated me with her literary eruditeness and psychological trauma that I thought the novel could have stood simply as a profile of her. But as it was, for all the anxiety that she makes for Luke, how a putdown of hers of a friend's wife even makes for a shattering development for Luke, she doesn't really get that much time onstage; she even at one point drops out completely when she takes up an academic position abroad.
Still, even with her limited exposure, Caputo does well by her, as he does with Corinne, even if there’s a would-be surprise with Corinne that signaled itself to me well before it plays itself out in the novel's final pages. And pre-ordained as the finale with Maureen might seem, it comes with a suggestion of a degree of enduring responsibility to a loved one that is sobering to say the least.
All in all, an engrossing and extremely well-written novel, Caputo’s latest.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews