Rereading Again
I’m still in reread mode, and while basically being snowed in for a week, I pulled an old classic off the shelf: That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo. The book’s setting centers on two weddings near Cape Cod that Griffin and his wife Joy attend. The first, the wedding of their daughter’s best friend, they attend together. Griffin drives to the Cape with the ashes of his late father in the trunk, as he plans to spread them on the Cape, the place both of his parents loved. The second wedding, their daughter’s, is a year later. Griffin and Joy attend their daughter’s wedding with dates, having spent the year between the two weddings separated…and this time, the ashes of both Griffin’s parents are in his trunk, as he still searches for the place and time to scatter them. The two weddings form the structure of the story, but the book is really about Griffin’s marriage to Joy, the marriages of their parents, and how what has happened to them (or their perceptions of it) carries through the rest of their lives.
Joe and I bought this book when it came out, because Richard Russo is one of our favorite writers. But unlike many of his other books, we each only read this book one time. It wasn’t one of our favorites, we agreed, but we couldn’t articulate exactly why. Maybe we were expecting something funnier, and the book just struck us as bleak.
I did like it much better this time than I did last time. At the time of this re-read, I’ve been married a decade longer than I had been the first time I read it, and I understood more of the nuance and the specific ways that marriage changes you, the compromises you make, and the ways you look to hold on to yourself. I also understand more about how your family shapes your ideas about marriage, and I empathized more with both Joy and Griffin, who had trouble expressing their expectations and being genuinely generous with what the other felt was needed in regards to the people who raised them. I was struck with the ending this time, much more so than I remember being last time: the grace it takes to say the hard words, the way a good marriage stretches you like a rubber band and increases your resilience. I also liked both of their families, which surprised me a little, but their motivations and confusions made more sense to me.
This was still not my favorite of Russo’s books. A lot of it is backstory, and character development of the minor characters was not as strong as it usually is for him. It didn’t have the humor that usually characterizes his writing. The ending felt a little rushed.
But Russo’s books definitely age well, and by that I mean they deepen with the maturity we gain with age. His writing is always reflective, and it always circles around similar themes, settings, and character tropes, but it never feels redundant. I really enjoyed this reread, and I enjoyed remembering the things I didn’t get ten years ago. I’m not the same person or the same wife I was then, and Russo’s books always give me encouragement that this growth is a good thing. I love reading a book that feels like we can grow together.