The Book of the Mandolin Player

Overview

Meg Cross lives in a small Maine town with a family that is too big, too loud, too everything. Life in a small Maine town: where everyone is related by blood or marriage, where everyone knows everything there is to know about everyone else, and where there is no anonymity. So it seems for Meg Cross, living in an old farmhouse on the side of a mountain with her young niece, Maeve. It's easy to fall in line with her family's expectations, but easy, too, to resent them, when she's certain there's something more out there for her. Then tragedy strikes to the core of who and what she believes she is. How does a person remake a life from all the broken pieces? Meg finds herself forced to re-examine all she formerly found important, and in the process, comes to realize that though it might chafe, there is strength to be drawn from the place she comes from, and the people to whom she is truly known.

Reviews

"It's an interesting story, with characters, places and emotional atmosphere strongly reminiscent of those in Jennifer Wixson's Sovereign novels — small-town Mainers, well-educated, wry-humored, grappling with problems of life, love and the pursuit of people who are chronically not there." —Dana Wilde, Kennebec Journal

Author Biography

Anne Britting Oleson lives in the mountains of central Maine with her family. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, The Church of St. Materiana, The Beauty of It, and Planes and Trains and Automobiles. She is a founding member of Simply Not Done, a women's reading, writing, and teaching cooperative.