Swimming at Suppertime: Seasons of Delight on the Wrong Side of Buzzards BayMaster storyteller and beloved NPR commentator Carol Wasserman shares the quirky joys and tribulations of her “impecunious, ordinary, fixed little life” among fellow Swamp Yankees in her raggedy little tourist town on the Massachusetts coast, across the water from upscale Cape Cod. In the tradition of Bailey White and Garrison Keillor, she regales us with amusing and touching stories about the colorful characters and yearly rituals—from the absurd to the sublime—that keep her so closely tethered to the town and her ancient, crumbling half-Cape house, which she describes as “a fragile, sinking, lovely old wreck of a place that I have come to confuse with my own flesh.” In these tales that have delighted millions of listeners, she tells about the fine art of buying apples from squabbling orchard owners who impugn one another’s fruit; the wild enthusiams of her dearly departed husband, Aubrey, who was once sure he’d discovered a tiny Stonehenge by the side of the road; the pleasures of buying abandoned sewing projects while others scrape and claw at the semiannual rummage sa≤ the reassuring qualities of living life amid ghosts and her neighbor’s claims of witnessing ectoplasm in the upstairs hall; her several days spent in darkness because of a rutabaga cassero≤ her discovery of the surprising religious fervor of a good friend who prays to a guy named Wendell; the strange comforts of the sound of coyotes singing in the middle of the night; and the community of ladies who swim at suppertime, when the beach is deserted and they know “the ocean will be as warm as the primordial soup.” Swimming at Suppertime is the remarkable debut of one of the most original and entertaining new voices writing about the wondrous daily surprises and pleasures of American life. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
afternoon Amish apples Aubrey Auntie babies bake beach plums believe Buzzards Bay Cape chairs Christmas clean coffee cold cookies couple Coyotes cranberry dark daylilies door drive dump empty feel fish front fruit garden gone Gospel of Luke grocery guys hand hard heat jelly keep kids kitchen lady light Little Frieda live look Macouns Memorial Day months morning night paint paper pickup truck pile plastic poetry slam pull Queen remember remind Route 28 Rummage Sale rutabaga Salvation Army scallop sea glass season sleep smell someone stand stay street stuff summer supper sweet sweetcorn Swimming at Suppertime tall ships tell things tiny told Toll House Toll House Cookies town trees truck underneath wait Wal-Mart walk warm watch weeks Weweantic white peaches window winter rentals