{"product_id":"pete-and-alice-in-maine-a-novel-isbn-9780063242661","title":"Pete and Alice in Maine: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Gripping.”—Richard Russo, author of \u003cem\u003eEmpire Falls\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e“\u003c\/em\u003eShetterly’s debut achieves a subtle grace, a quality of light and shadow worthy of a Bergman film.\u003c\/strong\u003e”—\u003cstrong\u003eAllegra Goodman, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Pete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e is a tender, big-hearted, clear-eyed portrait of a marriage, and a family, in crisis—set during the plague years when the entire world was in crisis. As she investigates the insidious effect of lies, betrayal, fear, and anger, not to mention the mundane joys and wrenching heartaches of everyday life, Caitlin Shetterly gets to the heart of what it means to be a family.” — Christina Baker Kline, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/em\u003ebestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe Exiles\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA powerful and beautifully written debut novel that intimately explores a fractured marriage and the struggles of modern parenthood, set against the backdrop of the chaotic spring of 2020.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReeling from a painful betrayal in her marriage as the Covid pandemic takes hold in New York City, Alice packs up her family and flees to their vacation home in Maine. She hopes to find sanctuary—from the uncertainties of the exploding pandemic and her faltering marriage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePutting distance between herself and the stresses and troubles of the city, Alice begins to feel safe and relieved. But the locals are far from friendly. Trapped and forced into quarantine by hostile neighbors, Alice sees the imprisoning structure of her life\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003ein this new predicament. Stripped down to the bare essentials of survival and tending to the needs of her two children, she can no longer ignore all the ways in which she feels limited and lost—lost in the big city, lost as a wife, lost as a mother, lost as a daughter and lost as a person.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the world shifts around her and the balance in her marriage tilts, Alice and her husband, Pete, are left to consider if what keeps their family safe is the same thing as what keeps their family together.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\"This novel has its thumb on the pulse of our times, the pandemic and all its costs and upheavals, our political and social fault lines, climate change as we try to raise children into a new world. Yet it is, at heart, a familiar and intimate story of a marriage and a family struggling within its own universe of hurt and betrayal. Shetterly refuses to offer easy answers in this powerful, beautifully written novel.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMeredith Hall, author of Beneficence and Without a Map\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"When we first meet the title characters of Caitlin Shetterly’s gripping novel \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e, they’re fleeing pandemic ravaged New York with their children for the relative safety of their second home. How satisfying it would be in this age of easy social media judgment to despise them for their privilege. The only thing preventing it, really, is that this very fine novel—like all good novels—insists upon getting to know them. I loved it.\"  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRichard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"What literature is going to come out of the present moment? How do things look from where we are right now? Caitlin Shetterly's \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e is one answer. A comfortable New Yorker and her family escape the city during the pandemic, but all is not well. Voice-driven, relatable, and very contemporary, this novel is a beautifully-written depiction of the inner lives of a small family and the land to which they briefly escape.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDebra Spark, author of And Then Something Happened and Unknown Caller\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this taut, riveting novel, Shetterly has created a lush, raw world: a passionate and damaged marriage; a family coming apart and knitting back together during a pandemic; a starkly unwelcoming place that becomes home. In all its multi-layered emotional facets, this book cuts deep, moving and true to the end.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKate Christensen, author of The Last Cruise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is the novel I’ve been waiting to read. Caitlin Shetterly’s brilliant take on \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c\/em\u003e happens when the \u003cem\u003eworst \u003c\/em\u003ehappens to a couple days before the pandemic locks them together is simply fabulous. Funny and fierce, compassionate and uncompromising—I could continue pairing complimentary adjectives forever—best just to buy it and clear a weekend. You won’t want to put it down.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKaren Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Pete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e is a tender, big-hearted, clear-eyed portrait of a marriage, and a family, in crisis—set during the plague years when the entire world was in crisis. As she investigates the insidious effect of lies, betrayal, fear, and anger, not to mention the mundane joys and wrenching heartaches of everyday life, Caitlin Shetterly gets to the heart of what it means to be a family.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Shetterly…gives voice to the fearful, isolated beginnings of COVID-19….With the tone and tenor of Matthew Norman's Last Couple Standing (2020), Sarah Pekkanen's The Ever After (2018), and Greg Olear's Fathermucker (2011), the story taps on every fault line within one family, as a whole world grapples with its own fragility. Heartwarming and heartwrenching in equal turns, Shetterly's foray into fiction is unforgettable.”    - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This debut reads like a sharp report from the near past.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrown Alumni\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e is a splendid debut. . . . Shetterly’s narrative is peppered with diverse cultural references. . . . Shetterly hits at the heart of [the pandemic years] in her very lively narrative.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Working Waterfront\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Told in intimate, unsparing, often funny and always exacting detail. . . . \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine \u003c\/em\u003edelves thrillingly into a topic that has always been at the core of Shetterly’s work: the complex dynamics of marriage, in deed and in words both said and unsaid.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBangor Daily News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Thought-provoking and raw, this pandemic reflection is about so much more than lockdown—it's about our roles in society and how to come into our own as mothers and women.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eZibby Owens, Good Morning America\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It's impossible not to think of [\u003cem\u003eLucy by the Sea\u003c\/em\u003e] when you begin \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice\u003c\/em\u003e…Shetterly's assured writing and flawed, sometimes maddening characters….is wise about humans' ambivalent feelings and often wryly funny (again, like Strout)….with daughters who bring wicked humor and fresh perspectives to the proceedings….relatable and entertaining, as is Shetterly's ability to zero in on how many of us were feeling in the summer of 2020…” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The family’s year of living dangerously unfolds slowly, yet compellingly…. What we see from the distance of the novel and its fundamentally earnest protagonists is that despite the boredom, fear, loneliness and despair the pandemic wrought, it also brought the potential to become the only thing we have to look forward to: the better, happier humans we aspire to be…. I loved reading this book, which I gulped down in two otherwise busy days.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Shetterly writes . . . with wry humor and compassion. . . . Shetterly’s debut achieves a subtle grace.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAllegra Goodman, The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“With her first novel, Caitlin Shetterly finds the humor in her transplanted New Yorkers' disorientation and gracefully weaves such moments into another classic story line: a marriage is in trouble.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness, Best Books This Week\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A vividly realistic portrait of day-to-day life during lockdown, of the ways the pandemic both cleaved families together and wrenched them apart. Laced with wry humor, \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine \u003c\/em\u003eis that rare thing: a deeply intelligent page-turner.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJoanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This beautifully crafted portrait of a marriage, with its backdrop of exquisite nature and troubling winds, kids balanced like boulders about to roll, is as harrowing as any thriller, and tender, too, even sweet, a couple of big-city hearts bound together despite all. And it's a lot, this country life, these old wounds, this new one, the distance between worlds, this fateful question: who are we when we're not who we were? Bring a flashlight, because \u003cem\u003ePete and Alice in Maine\u003c\/em\u003e will keep you up asking all night.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBill Roorbach, author of  Life Among Giants\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Rarely is a fictional voice so intimate, honest, and revealing. Alice's carefully created family life is interrupted and her consequent fears are described with deep intelligence in exquisite sentences. I loved this book!\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In the Gloaming\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Caitlin Shetterly's fantastic new novel contains such resonant, crucial clues about what a woman gives up for her marriage and how she gets lost. It’s also a novel about what forgiveness can look like and a certain kind of finding of oneself.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSusan Conley, author of Landslide\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[A] perceptive debut novel…. the psychological acuity applied to the family drama is undeniable.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Maine resident Shetterly has written a masterly debut novel about the first year of the plague and its corrosive effects on one family in the United States struggling to survive intact. Readers will be hard-pressed to leave this story behind.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890438631653,"sku":"NP9780063242661","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780063242661.jpg?v=1730233283","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/pete-and-alice-in-maine-a-novel-isbn-9780063242661","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}