The Outer Cape: A Novel

I received an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In the short story collection “We've Already Gone This Far”, Patrick Dacey explored what happens when an entire town wakes up from the American Dream to a reality they did not expect and were not prepared to live in. He returns to the same town in his debut novel “The Outer Cape”. This time he focuses on just one couple, Patrick and Irene Kelly, and their sons Nathan and Andrew.

Most of the book is spent on Patrick and Irene. As in his short stories, Dacey's characters are written with grace, honesty, and compassion. Patrick and Irene are very real people. Which means that they are flawed and not necessarily easy to like. We see how Patrick, a show more real baby boomer, was raised to do whatever it takes to succeed, even if that means using other people and breaking the law. Ethics to him only matter if it helps him make more money. Irene floats through her early life without any real purpose. Raised in the late 20th century to believe that anything is possible, neither is prepared for the harsh reality of the early 21st century where the Dream has been replaced with responsibilities of family, business, and community.

Dacey is a gifted author with the ability for presenting real people with real problems in a manner that is honest, raw, and passionate. You really can't like Robert, but you want to know what happens to him. While I enjoyed Dacey's characters, I could not help but feel like I've already read this story before. Dacey either needs to stay with the short story format (which he excels at) of find a new subject matter. My honest opinion is to skip this book and read his short stories instead. show less

With a lovely Joel Meyerowitz Cape Cod porch cover, this novel deceptively hints of a serenity that is not achieved until the very end. It's the story of brutality passed from fathers to sons in a family of builders on the Cape. Two sons are raised by a morally corrupt father and a mother who seems powerless to be a positive influence. Its meanders from Las Vegas to Afghanistan to Wall St and then back to the Cape are a long stretch of unhappiness and misery. The last ten pages seem to have been written by another author, and the reader needs to decide if it was all worth it. Me, not so much.

Not unlike Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides, The Outer Cape by Patrick Dacey takes an emotional toll on the reader. In order to do this, we have to feel something for at least one of the characters, and this, perhaps is the hardest part in reading it.

These are not the sort of people most of us would want to be associated with, especially the mother and father, but as time passes and the sons, Nathan and Andrew, suddenly become men, we begin to feel for them and understand why they are who they are.

Dacey is a gifted writer, and although I struggled at times with The Outer Cape, I’m glad I read it, because from this reader’s perspective, I’m taking this story as a warning of what not to do as both a parent and husband.

The Outer Cape seemed to have many of the elements I really enjoy in a novel: family saga, secrets, small town life. As another reviewer has stated though, somehow it didn't come together for me. I found the characters unpleasant, which doesn't at all have to be a deal breaker in a novel but seemed to be, for me, in this case. The author did a good job in his warts and all descriptions of his characters. Maybe too good, since in the end I found none of them sympathetic or even very interesting.

I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway, and the beautiful cover was just calling to me for a June read! This one releases on June 27th, so I’m excited to present an early review.

The first section of this book follows Robert and Irene as their marriage endures tests. We change perspectives and get to know their individual motivations while also seeing the bigger impacts this has on each other, and more specifically, their two young sons. Irene is a stay-at-home mother, who works hard to raise Andrew and Nathan. Nevertheless, she wonders what would have happened if she’d chosen another path. She toys with the idea of pursuing her artistic side.

Robert on the other side is a man who wants to win. He has this uncontrollable desire to show more be the best. He uses this desire in his career and in his attempts to make money, but this eventually leads him down the path of fraud and deceit. After participating in a housing fraud scheme, he spends stints in and out of jail. When he isn’t in jail, he is not in contact with his wife and family, but rather is always scheming the next way to make some money. show less

The Outer Cape started off great. Immediately, I began to sink into the story. That's important to me because I'm easily bored if the story doesn't hook me in quickly. However, and unfortunately that didn't last. I did get through the rest of the book, though during the last quarter I honestly wondered if I would.

It's not as if it's bad writing really, it just feels like the author was tired of the story too and just kept on and on and on to get a word count capable of being a novel.

Oh and one very serious annoyance. I grew up in South Bend, IN. There's not much I don't know about that city, but even so, it wouldn't have taken much research to figure out that it's the "St. Joseph RIVER" not lake. Please check your facts when writing show more about a real place. show less

First, thank you to LibraryThing/Holt Publishers for an early copy of this novel for my enjoyment. I truly liked the era (60's - 70's) of the early part of the story, and love Cape Cod anytime, but I found it hard to become attached to the characters, especially Irene (mother, wife, artist). The early life of Irene and Robert was typical 60's with lots of pot, drugs, sex, abortions – things that happened then. After their 2 sons are grown, they return to the cape to a sick Irene (brain tumor), but the story never did grip me, found myself skimming to get through. Thanks to Patrick Dacey for the opportunity to read one of his first novels.