Norumbega Park
A Novel
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Richie Palumbo, the most prosaic of men, gets lost one night in 1969 while driving home with his family. He finds himself in the town of Norumbega—hidden, remote, and gorgeous, at the far edges of Boston's western suburbs. He sees a venerable old house and, without quite knowing why, decides he must have it. The repercussions of Richie's wild dream to own a house in this town lead to a forty-year odyssey for his family. For his son, Jack, Norumbega becomes a sexual playground—until he meets one ungraspable girl and begins a lifelong pursuit of her. Joannie, Richie's daughter, finds that the challenges of living in Norumbega encourage her to pursue the contemplative life. For Stella, Richie's wife, life in Norumbega leads to surprising growth as both a sexual and a spiritual being.
Norumbega Park—by Anthony Giardina, the critically acclaimed author of White Guys—is about class and parental dreams, sex and spirituality, the way visions conflict with stubborn reality, and a family's ability to open up for others a world they can never fully grasp for themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One night in 1969, while driving with his family, Richie Palumbo accidentally discovers the (fictional) New England town of Norumbega, a WASPy enclave west of Boston, and falls in love at first sight with an old house near the town center as well as what he and his family could become there. So begins Giardina's contemplative new novel, which weaves the perspectives of the Palumbo family wife Stella, son Jack, and daughter Joannie over the course of 40 years as they struggle with faith, desire, and disappointment. Richie's dreams prove elusive, and the Palumbos are ill-prepared for their new community: "The furniture they'd brought was full of the angles of an imagined future that, he realized now, had already dipped into the past." Stella resists the town from the beginning, while Jack rebels against the weight of his father's expectations by channeling his teenage energy and looks into seducing as many girls at Norumbega Regional High as he can. Joannie slips from her father's grasp and becomes a cloistered nun. There are moments of grace and beauty a late-night swim on an empty lake, an illicit glide across an iced-over pond and Giardina (White Guys) effectively portrays the cloistered world of contemporary nuns. However, the characters' malaise and dissatisfaction becomes claustrophobic.
