Swimming at Suppertime: Seasons of Delight on the Wrong Side of Buzzards Bay - Hardcover
Master storyteller and beloved NPR commentator Carol Wasserman shares the quirky joys and tribulations of her “impecunious, ordinary, fixed little life” among fellow Swamp Yankees in her raggedy little tourist town on the Massachusetts coast, across the water from upscale Cape Cod. In the tradition of Bailey White and Garrison Keillor, she regales us with amusing and touching stories about the colorful characters and yearly rituals—from the absurd to the sublime—that keep her so closely tethered to the town and her ancient, crumbling half-Cape house, which she describes as “a fragile, sinking, lovely old wreck of a place that I have come to confuse with my own flesh.”
In these tales that have delighted millions of listeners, she tells about the fine art of buying apples from squabbling orchard owners who impugn one another’s fruit; the wild enthusiams of her dearly departed husband, Aubrey, who was once sure he’d discovered a tiny Stonehenge by the side of the road; the pleasures of buying abandoned sewing projects while others scrape and claw at the semiannual rummage sale; the reassuring qualities of living life amid ghosts and her neighbor’s claims of witnessing ectoplasm in the upstairs hall; her several days spent in darkness because of a rutabaga casserole; her discovery of the surprising religious fervor of a good friend who prays to a guy named Wendell; the strange comforts of the sound of coyotes singing in the middle of the night; and the community of ladies who swim at suppertime, when the beach is deserted and they know “the ocean will be as warm as the primordial soup.”
Swimming at Suppertime is the remarkable debut of one of the most original and entertaining new voices writing about the wondrous daily surprises and pleasures of American life.
In these tales that have delighted millions of listeners, she tells about the fine art of buying apples from squabbling orchard owners who impugn one another’s fruit; the wild enthusiams of her dearly departed husband, Aubrey, who was once sure he’d discovered a tiny Stonehenge by the side of the road; the pleasures of buying abandoned sewing projects while others scrape and claw at the semiannual rummage sale; the reassuring qualities of living life amid ghosts and her neighbor’s claims of witnessing ectoplasm in the upstairs hall; her several days spent in darkness because of a rutabaga casserole; her discovery of the surprising religious fervor of a good friend who prays to a guy named Wendell; the strange comforts of the sound of coyotes singing in the middle of the night; and the community of ladies who swim at suppertime, when the beach is deserted and they know “the ocean will be as warm as the primordial soup.”
Swimming at Suppertime is the remarkable debut of one of the most original and entertaining new voices writing about the wondrous daily surprises and pleasures of American life.
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From the Back Cover:
“So this is how it is. When you live in a place others see only on luxury visits. When your wallet shrinks between chipped teeth and bald tires. When the beach plums thrive on inhospitality. And when you have the craft and power to set it down in the simplest elegance of prose and keen observation. I love this writing. So will you.” —Susan Stamberg, special correspondent, National Public Radio
About the Author:
CAROL WASSERMAN is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She is a widow who lives alone in a tiny weather-beaten half-Cape house with five fireplaces and a beehive oven, situated on a salt-marsh on the Massachusetts coast, across Buzzards Bay from Cape Cod.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherCrown
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0609608401
- ISBN 13 9780609608401
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages208
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