From Publishers Weekly
The epicenter of the Colt family is the Big House, built in 1903 on Wings Neck, a deserted strip of Cape Cod. It's not only an architectural gem but a device to chronicle family, local history and the culture of Boston Brahmins-and it accomplishes that task with charm, style and solid research. For 42 summers, Colt traveled from winter homes across the U.S. to partake in this magical place. It's where he learned to swim and play tennis, and where he kissed his first girl. Indeed, the Big House has seen five weddings, four divorces, parties, anniversaries and love affairs. The Colts, a once venerable tribe, had lost their money-"it is not wealth so much as former wealth that defines Old Money families"-but were determined to keep their ancestral home. Time may have marched on, but the Big House refused to cooperate: "Everything in this house breathes of the past." Gilbert & Sullivan sheet music, rotary telephones and ancient globes grace its interiors. Yet all is not perfect in this palace by the sea. Colt, like playwright A.J. Gurney, is adept at exposing the dark underbelly of WASP restraint, recording the mental illness, alcoholism and despair that have plagued his family. His one comfort? The Big House. This love letter to the past is a quiet delight.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
There are those who use the word
summer more as a verb than a noun; who suspend their daily urban or suburban lives to journey to another place so as to immerse themselves in its essential "otherness." Colt summered at the Big House, a rambling, 11-room, multibayed, -gabled and -dormered Cape Cod mansion built by his great-grandfather, inventor Ned Atkinson. For a century it has stood sentry on a bluff overlooking Buzzard's Bay, attracting various Colts and Atkinsons as a spot where they can retreat and recharge, where they return to relive a past era's simpler times. Now a financial burden, the Big House is up for sale, and Colt makes a final pilgrimage to pay homage to an idyllic retreat whose splendor and purpose may be vanishing but whose significance is eternal. In a touching, deeply felt memoir, reminiscent of Willie Morris'
North toward Home (1967), Colt goes beyond his own wistful longing, rendering keen observations of a lifestyle borne of privilege, perpetuated by tradition, and celebrated through elegance.
Carol HaggasCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
