Dark Harbor House - Softcover

DeMarco, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0892725117 ISBN 13: 9780892725113

Publisher: Down East Books, 2000

Synopsis

Bring together a wonderfully varied mix of characters in a once-grand Maine island summer cottage, leave them to their own devices over the course of a long, idyllic summer in the late 1940s, and you have all the ingredients for a fine comedy of manners. Author Tom DeMarco starts with a simple little love story, weaves in tantalizing details of the old mansion's not totally respectable history, and adds a hint of gentle satire to create a novel that is touching, memorable, and deliciously entertaining.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Dark Harbor House, a grand but tumble-down mansion off the Maine coast, is the scene of an endless summer house party in the late 1940s.   Colonel Forsythe and his wife Marjorie preside.  About half their guests are in their twenties, friends of their two college-age children, Clark (Amherst) and Sissy (Radcliffe).      Among the collegians are Liam Dwyer (Cornell), Lizzie Gordon from Smith, or maybe it's Lizzie Smith from Gordon, no one is too sure, and the fetching Miss Laura Beauchalet (Radcliffe).  Liam has decided to fall madly in love with Laura this summer, but Laura is undecided.  His extraordinary poet's sensitivity is hampered by not being able to think of anything to say to Laura.  She may be uninterested, or may be just concealing.  When she does allow him, one time, to kiss her, she comments on his technique: "A little firmer, I think, Liam.   A kiss, like a handshake, you know, needs a bit of authority."  Liam puzzles over his possible moves as in a game of chess, counting on the Forsythes' 13-year old daughter Jody for strategic advice.    Also present is Colonel Forsythe's old prep school roommate, Monsignor Leary.  The Monsignor is writing a book to be called, A History of the Future.  On the immediate horizon, he assures the assembled guests, is a return to the great Depression ("How depressing," Marjorie sighs) and general decline of the West.  Don't count on technology, he tells them, to bail out the developed world, don't, in particular, count on the new development of 'tel-o-vision,' which he authoritatively predicts will be nothing more than a flash in the pan.  There are additional 'fogies,' as Marjorie characterizes the members of her own generation: Mr. Collyer who keeps his hearing aid in Marjorie's safe, the terrifying Aunt Grace, and the Colonel's slightly disconnected sister, Scarlet.    Marjorie has invited one summer guest who is neither college age nor fogy, the Broadway actress Gabriella Lake.  "She is almost too beautiful," Liam tells the Colonel over breakfast.  "Beauty needs to be flawed in some way so that . . ."  Well, he's not too sure what, but anyway, Gabriella does seem to be flawed in her most striking lack of flaw.    Jody and the Colonel have put together a collection of letters and artifacts of the late nineteenth century religious charismatic, Jeannie Isobel.  Jeannie, along with her Society of Gideons, her followers and her lovers (and a few enemies) summered at Dark Harbor House through the 1890s.  These former residents float about in the minds of the present company, and generally complicate what otherwise would be -- at least if Liam had his way -- a perfectly simple little love story.

About the Author

Tom DeMarco is the author of fourteen published books, including novels, business books and a collection of short stories.  His most recent work is a pair of speculative novels, A Ruby Beam of Light and Airship Nation.  Together they make up part of his series Dark World Chronicles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Down East Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0892725117
• ISBN 13: 9780892725113
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288