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CAPE MAY by Chip Cheek Kirkus Star

CAPE MAY

by Chip Cheek

Pub Date: April 30th, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29715-0
Publisher: Celadon Books

This young couple's September honeymoon in Cape May got so boring they almost went home early. If only.

Henry and Effie got married a few months after high school graduation in their 1950s Georgia hometown and have come to while away two weeks in Effie's uncle's house, the site of fondly remembered summer visits all through her childhood. Unfortunately, Effie "had not understood what 'off-season' meant,” and Henry's no help—he's never been north of Atlanta. Sadly, the "old clerk at the grocer’s seemed as happy to see them as they were to see him." At least they have the delicious problem of losing their virginities, and then their inhibitions, with the help of Uncle George's well-stocked liquor cabinet. But after several days, the sad, lonely feel of the town starts to get to them. They are planning to leave a week early when they notice lights on down the street and decide to stop by. The effusive woman who answers the door turns out to be someone Effie knows, a friend of her much older cousin—actually, someone she hated. But before she can get Henry out of there, gin is being poured, dinner is being served, and a gang of people, including everyone from older men in tuxedos, beatniks, Coast Guard cadets, and a naked toddler, is boogeying it up in the living room. Higher on gin and excitement than she's ever been in her life, Effie decides running into Clara Strauss was not such a bad thing after all. The couple becomes completely infatuated with this decadent, sexy, cosmopolitan crowd, in the process falling down a rabbit hole with life-changing consequences. Deceptively relaxed and simple at first, the novel seems to be an easygoing trip down Memory Lane. It soon reveals itself as a swirling vortex of psychological suspense with insights about marriage that recall writers like Margot Livesey and Alice Munro.

The 1950s setting, the pellucid prose, and the propulsive plot make this very steamy debut novel about morality and desire feel like a classic.