The Birth of a Grandfather: A Novel
Aug 2015 · Open Road Media
Ebook
278
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About this ebook
May Sarton’s 7th novel is about marriage, family, life’s cycles, and the regeneration of love
Frances and Sprig Wyeth have come to the old Wyeth house in Maine for the summer. In a house filled with lively members of her husband’s extended family, Frances feels alienated from everyone, including Sprig. A night of passion breaks down the growing barriers between them, yet Frances feels it is more a “desperate moment of possession” than the true “flowing together of two deeply joined selves.” And although she’s the mother of two grown children, in many ways she still feels like a child, waiting to mature into adulthood.
Sprig adores his wife. But now, at 50, he both wants her and wants her to leave. He longs for freedom and is haunted by memories of his youth. His son, Caleb, is hostile; his unmarried daughter, Betsy, is pregnant. Sprig feels as if he is “walking in the dark,” and has begun to doubt himself as a husband, father, and friend.
The Birth of a Grandfather is the story of a marriage and a family, of friendship and the love that reminds us that we are alive and that we matter. It’s about the small domestic moments and the defining events that make up a life.
Frances and Sprig Wyeth have come to the old Wyeth house in Maine for the summer. In a house filled with lively members of her husband’s extended family, Frances feels alienated from everyone, including Sprig. A night of passion breaks down the growing barriers between them, yet Frances feels it is more a “desperate moment of possession” than the true “flowing together of two deeply joined selves.” And although she’s the mother of two grown children, in many ways she still feels like a child, waiting to mature into adulthood.
Sprig adores his wife. But now, at 50, he both wants her and wants her to leave. He longs for freedom and is haunted by memories of his youth. His son, Caleb, is hostile; his unmarried daughter, Betsy, is pregnant. Sprig feels as if he is “walking in the dark,” and has begun to doubt himself as a husband, father, and friend.
The Birth of a Grandfather is the story of a marriage and a family, of friendship and the love that reminds us that we are alive and that we matter. It’s about the small domestic moments and the defining events that make up a life.
About the author
May Sarton (1912–1995) was born on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. Her novels A Shower of Summer Days, The Birth of a Grandfather, and Faithful Are the Wounds, as well as her poetry collection In Time Like Air, all received nominations for the National Book Award.
An accomplished memoirist, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton spent her later years in York, Maine, living and writing by the sea. In her memoir Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992), she shares her own personal thoughts on getting older. Her final poetrycollection, Coming into Eighty, was published in 1994. Sarton died on July 16, 1995, in York, Maine.
An accomplished memoirist, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton spent her later years in York, Maine, living and writing by the sea. In her memoir Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992), she shares her own personal thoughts on getting older. Her final poetrycollection, Coming into Eighty, was published in 1994. Sarton died on July 16, 1995, in York, Maine.
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