The End of the Point - by Elizabeth Graver (Paperback)

About the Book

"A place out of time, Ashaunt Point in Massachussetts has provided sanctuary and anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who spend their summers along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change. The two older Porter girls-teenagers Helen and Dossie-run wild. The children's Scottish nurse, Bea, falls in love. And the youngest daughter, Janie, is entangled in an incident that cuts the season short and haunts the family for years to come. As the decades pass, Helen and then her son Charlie return to the Point, seeking refuge from the rapidly changing times. But Ashaunt is not entirely removed from events unfolding beyond its borders. Neither Charlie nor his mother can escape the long shadow of history-Vietnam, the bitterly disputed real estate development of the Point, economic misfortune, illness, and tragedy. An unforgettable portrait of one family's journey through the second half of the twentieth century, The End of the Point artfully illuminates the powerful legacy of family and place, exploring what we are born into, what we pass down, preserve, cast off or willingly set free"--

Book Synopsis

"A place out of time, Ashaunt Point in Massachussetts has provided sanctuary and anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who spend their summers along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change. The two older Porter girls-teenagers Helen and Dossie-run wild. The children's Scottish nurse, Bea, falls in love. And the youngest daughter, Janie, is entangled in an incident that cuts the season short and haunts the family for years to come. As the decades pass, Helen and then her son Charlie return to the Point, seeking refuge from the rapidly changing times. But Ashaunt is not entirely removed from events unfolding beyond its borders. Neither Charlie nor his mother can escape the long shadow of history-Vietnam, the bitterly disputed real estate development of the Point, economic misfortune, illness, and tragedy. An unforgettable portrait of one family's journey through the second half of the twentieth century, The End of the Point artfully illuminates the powerful legacy of family and place, exploring what we are born into, what we pass down, preserve, cast off or willingly set free"--

From the Back Cover

A place out of time, Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts, has provided sanctuary and anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who summer along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change.

An unforgettable portrait of one family's journey through the second half of the twentieth century, The End of the Point artfully probes the hairline fractures hidden beneath the surface of our lives and traces the fragile and enduring bonds that connect us. With subtlety and grace, Elizabeth Graver illuminates the powerful legacy of family and place, exploring what we are born into and what we pass down, preserve, cast off, or willingly set free.

Review Quotes

"Elizabeth Graver is an uncommonly fine writer: dancingly in command of language, yet always, foremost, faithful to something quieter and more essential - call it the complexities of truth. The ambitious scope of her new novel is beautifully matched by her largeness of spirit. I would read anything this author writes." - Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others
"The End of the Point is intimate and rich and compelling, a sprawling saga that evokes both the wildness and fragility of the New England coast." - Stewart O'Nan, author of A World Away and Wish You Were Here
"In this globalized age, with everyone talking about migration, here comes Elizabeth Graver to remind us of just what place can mean. The attachment in this gorgeously written, enormously moving book transcends time and personality. It is deep, extraordinarily ordinary, and finally provocative." - Gish Jen, author of World and Town
"An engrossing and intimate portrait of a New England family and the patch of land that gives them solace, generation after generation, when other people cannot. Graver's writing is simply stunning on every page, and she has gone deep under the skin of these characters to create this magnificent novel." - Lily King, author of Father of the Rain
"This absorbing novel spans half a century, and deals with war, love, illness, frustration, ambition, politics--and most particularly with place and its meaning. I was embedded in The End of the Point--not so much reading it as living it: a deep and singular experience." - Edith Pearlman, author of Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories
"Moves fluidly across time, all on this same beloved piece of land....Graver is incredibly good at evoking past, present, and future, and the ways in which they intersect....Graver's gifts--her control of time, her ability to evoke place and define character--are immense." - Publishers Weekly
"Graver takes an eloquent, balanced look at the power of place and time and the evolution of a family of flawed but relatable characters, building a subtle symphony that unfolds over decades....Part of the pleasure in reading The End of the Point is in seeing how the Porters grow tenaciously as individuals over time. Graver is a master at showing how beautifully ordinary people survive the twists and turns of everyday life....Graver's novel has the impact that an ambitious novel can have without the uninviting heft of pomposity. Her characters aren't heroic so much as human, not larger than life but humble with actuality, and the choices they make feel entirely their own....Graver also possesses the rare gift of writing with evocative, poetic ambience and manages to convey the sense of time passing without making this overly explicit or gimmicky for the reader....Graver, like Woolf, is as interested in the minutiae of human (especially family) interaction as she is in describing the ineffable in palpably lyrical language. It's no mean feat to find a balance between the two, but Graver gracefully transitions from one mode to the other at several points. In this, as in much of the novel, her sense of literary proportion is exquisite." - The Millions
"Graver takes an eloquent, balanced look at the power of place and time and the evolution of a family of flawed but relatable characters, building a subtle symphony that unfolds over decades....Graver is a master at showing how beautifully ordinary people survive the twists and turns of everyday life." - The Millions
"Eloquent ....Graver's engaging, expansive storytelling allows us to take up residence inside the minds of a host of different characters, watching as they create their own pictures of the world around them, as they invest certain places and people with mythic significance." - New York Times Book Review