Cape Cod Stories: Tales from Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard

Alice Hoffman has written an Introduction to this treasure chest of poems, diaries, stories, and musings about Cape Cod that makes the reader plunge into the many atmospheres and moods of this special place. Her seduction proves worthy, for this collection of prose and poetry edited by John Miller and Tim Smith manages to uncover memories and a long history of this unique haven for artists. Cape Cod and its neighboring Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard have long been a place for writers to visit, to live, and to incorporate into some of the most important literature of this country. Herman Melville writes about the oddities of the Nantucketer. Among the writings is a Falmouth Whaling Log from the early 1900s. There are moments from the works of Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Helen Keller, poems by Marge Piercy, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Sylvia Plath, and fresh stories from Adam Gopnik, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Edmund Wilson - twenty five entries in all - that bring back memories for those who have had the special joy of Cape Light. This is a fine selection of quick reading stories that remind us how important (in its own quiet way) that this eastern most point of the United States has been - and continues to be: this fragile piece of land has inspired more beauty of words than almost any other idiosyncratic spot in the country. Grady Harp, December 2004