The Maytrees - Annie Dillard

In this powerfully moving novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dillard displays penetrating insight into the human condition with a remarkable story about the unknowable, unbreakable bonds of love and family. n nBrilliant. .

. . A shimmering meditation on the ebb and flow of love.

-- New York Timesn nIn her elegant, sophisticated prose, Dillard tells a tale of intimacy, loss and extraordinary friendship and maturity against a background of nature in its glorious color and caprice. The Maytrees is an intelligent, exquisite novel. -- The Washington Timesn nToby Maytree first sees Lou Bigelow on her bicycle in postwar Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Her laughter and loveliness catch his breath. Maytree is a Provincetown native, an educated poet of thirty. As he courts Lou, just out of college, her stillness draws him.

He hides his serious wooing, and idly shows her his poems. n nIn spare, elegant prose, Dillard traces the Maytrees' decades of loving and longing. They live cheaply among the nonconformist artists and writers that the bare tip of Cape Cod attracts.

When their son Petie appears, their innocent Bohemian friend Deary helps care for him. But years later it is Deary who causes the town to talk.n nIn this moving novel, Dillard intimately depicts willed bonds of loyalty, friendship, and abiding love. She presents nature's vastness and nearness.

Warm and hopeful, The Maytrees is the surprising capstone of Dillard's original body of work. n