The Summer Friend: A Memoir

Alive with the intoxicating magic of summer in New England, former editor of the New York Times Book Review Charles McGrath’s evocative memoir looks back at that sun-soaked season, at family, youth, and a singular bond made at a time when he thought he was beyond making friends.\n“To read Chip McGrath’s gentle, elegant memoir … is to lose yourself in your own past summers, especially the ones of your youth, when you imagined there’d be an infinite number of them, and also friends to share those summers with. That both turn out to be numbered makes this book positively ache with beauty and loss.” —Richard Russo\nIt was early evening and a new acquaintance had come to retrieve his daughter from a play date. Instead of driving up in a minivan, he arrived by water, tacking his sailboat smartly across a squiggly channel in the marsh, throwing a rope overboard, and zipping back home, his gleeful daughter riding in the wake. Who knew you could do such a thing? And how could you resist befriending a man such as that?\nOver the course of this rich memoir, McGrath recalls with a gimlet eye the pleasures of summers past: amateur lobstering, 9-hole golf, family costume charades, bridge-jumping, and a friendship forged between two men from different backgrounds who came together late in life.\nRecounting the vagaries of summer with such precision and warmth-- peeling long strips of sunburnt skin from your shoulder as if “shuffling off your own cocoon,” the outdoor shower curtain blowing open in the breeze, an M80 firework in the mailbox--The Summer Friend is simultaneously a potent evocation of the rhythms and rituals of summer and a stirring remembrance of a friend found and then lost.

McGrath, Charles

Parenting & Relationships

KNOPF

Alive with the intoxicating magic of summer in New England, former editor of the New York Times Book Review Charles McGrath’s evocative memoir looks back at that sun-soaked season, at family, youth, and a singular bond made at a time when he thought he was beyond making friends.\n“Sun-drenched and deeply touching.” —The New York Times\n“Positively aches with beauty and loss.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls\nIt was early evening and a new acquaintance had come to retrieve his daughter from a play date. Instead of driving up in a minivan, he arrived by water, tacking his sailboat smartly across a squiggly channel in the marsh, throwing a rope overboard, and zipping back home, his gleeful daughter riding in the wake. Who knew you could do such a thing? And how could you resist befriending a man such as that?\nOver the course of this rich memoir, McGrath recalls with a gimlet eye the pleasures of summers past: amateur lobstering, 9-hole golf, family costume charades, bridge-jumping, and a friendship forged between two men from different backgrounds who came together late in life.\nRecounting the vagaries of summer with such precision and warmth-- peeling long strips of sunburnt skin from your shoulder as if “shuffling off your own cocoon,” the outdoor shower curtain blowing open in the breeze, an M80 firework in the mailbox--The Summer Friend is simultaneously a potent evocation of the rhythms and rituals of summer and a stirring remembrance of a friend found and then lost.

Vintage

In this golfer's ultimate delight, Charles McGrath and David McCormick have compiled a unique combination of golf history and original essays by some of golf's greatest (and best-selling) writers and enthusiasts. Anchoring the book is a colorful, loose-limbed history of the sport by the Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity. He travels the globe and the links, covering the key personalities and golfing events, advances in technique and technology, the expanding interest in the sport, and the curious mysteries of this international obsession. Complementing the narrative are wonderfully diverse and entertaining essays on everything from the Age of Tiger to the woes of the lowly club pro, the charms of playing in the dead of winter, and even giving up the game altogether. With its mix of unsurpassed literary writing and superb history, this armchair companion is a must-have for any serious student of the game--truly The Ultimate Golf Book.

The Ultimate Golf Book: A History and a Celebration of the World's Greatest Game

Reference

McCormick, David

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Mariner Books

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Books by McGrath, Charles