Swimming at Suppertime

Book excerpt: Master storyteller and beloved NPR commentator Carol Wasserman shares the quirky jobs and tribulations of her life among fellow Swamp Yankees in a little 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 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 describes the fine art of buying apples from squabbling orchard owners; the wild enthusiasms of her dearly departed husband, Aubrey, who was once sure he’d discovered a tiny Stonehenge by the side of the road; 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.