In the beginning of “That Old Cape Magic,” Jack Griffin, a middle-aged English professor, is driving to Cape Cod for a wedding, his deeply unhappy wife a day behind him and his father’s ashes in an urn in the trunk where they’ve been for the past year. Although Jack grew up to have the life he and his wife charted out as newlyweds, both are miserable and he hasn’t a clue as to why.
Griffin was raised by narcissistic parents who were cynical, selfish, snobbish, and spiteful. Never happy, they lived in their imaginations: the good was always in the future, in what might happen, in what lay ahead, as opposed to the present which they despise, and they despise anyone or anything remotely positive, as well,
For eleven months of the year, the Griffins, both professors, stew in resentment in their teaching jobs in the “Mid-f***ing-West”, but for one shining month, the month they vacation on Cape Cod. One summer, young Jack makes friends with another boy vacationing there with his family (“the Brownings”.) Jack sticks to the Brownings like peanut butter to the roof of one’s mouth, reveling in the experience of just being a regular kid with affectionate, albeit substitute parents. His own, meanwhile, virtually abandon him as they indulge themselves with their own adult pursuits, happily unencumbered by their child. When the month ends, the Griffins return to the Midwest, misery settling over them for the rest of the year.
As an adult Jack resolves to distance himself from these unhappy people. He marries a happy, uncomplicated woman (“Joy”) with a happy, uncomplicated family. As newlyweds, the two forge a pact, an outline of the lives they want to live (“The Great Truro Accord”) and when Jack at 57 discovers his wife weeping in the shower one morning, he wonders how it is possible for her to be unhappy having gotten everything she wanted.
While enroute to the wedding alone, he realizes that the Cape’s allure to his parents was its “shimmering elusiveness, the magical way it receded before them year after year.” It is only later he realizes that he has manifested both his parents in the way he has negated the happiness available in his own life. The story comes to a satisfying close with one character demonstrating that to a great degree, happiness is a choice.
“That Old Cape Magic” examines several other good themes, one being the allure of living in our future fantasies, and thus missing the beauty of the present. Another is the misplaced appreciation of pain and the devaluation of simple happiness. A third might be the way in which humans tend to take each other for granted, even – or especially? – those who love us most. Russo employs heartbreaking metaphors (Joy not waiting for Jack as they drive back home in separate cars), as well as humor that borders on slapstick, to maintain the pace of the narrative.
A caution: much of the novel plays out as the inner workings of the minds of Jack or his daughter, or the narrator’s monologue. This style might be considered tedious, were it not for the talent of the author. As it happened I enjoyed this book very much, and I recommend it.
--Lynne Spreen
