{"product_id":"big-house-t-a-century-in-the-life-of-an-american-summer-home-9780743249645","title":"Big House T A Century in the Life of an American","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this intimate and poignant history of a sprawling century-old summer house on Cape Cod, George Howe Colt reveals not just one family's fascinating story but a vanishing way of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDavid Halberstam What a wonderful book. George Howe Colt has taken an original idea -- over four generations a house is a family and a family is a house -- and turned it into an uncommon success, becoming in the process the writer as family archaeologist. It's a book that stands in a line with \u003ci\u003eThe Late George Apley\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Proper Bostonians.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdam Hochschild From the beautiful opening pages onward, you know you are in the hands of a masterful writer -- observant, subtle, eloquent at evoking the memories and feelings that rise up when our adult selves and childhood memories meet. But \u003ci\u003eThe Big House\u003c\/i\u003e is more than that; George Howe Colt brings to life several generations of an entire extended family, and the reader, like someone growing from childhood to adulthood and like the reader of a fine novel, gradually learns that this book's charmed, alluring world is far more complex than it first appears.\u003cbr\u003eAlec Wilkinson \u003ci\u003eThe Big House\u003c\/i\u003e is about the long, slow separation from the beautiful past -- in this case a shingled house by the ocean, which Colt's ancestors built and his family occupied in the summer for generations. He writes gracefully, with restraint and deep feeling, and his book is a rare accomplishment.\u003cbr\u003eAdrian Nicole LeBlanc This book is a true thing -- a careful opening into the rooms of origin, a meditation on loss and loving, a tender exploration of the mysteries of family. That George Howe Colt is a poet makes us especially lucky to be privy to his keen and generous company. In the fullness of a narrative fantastic with stories of his extraordinary ancestry, he honors what is precious without sentimentality, expresses intimacy without self-absorption, his wisdom rooted in humor and humility. I read it by my father's bedside as he lay dying, and felt safe inside this special book. Even more, I felt the steadying wonder of life.\u003cbr\u003e\"It’s elegiac, not nostalgic; autumnal, not midsummer. Like all works of art, the Big House was only a momentary stay against dissolution.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Max Byrd, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Five Best: Books about Houses\"\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49526899966295,"sku":"9780743249645","price":17.07,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780743249645.jpg?v=1731865808","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/big-house-t-a-century-in-the-life-of-an-american-summer-home-9780743249645","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}