NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Engrossing...studded with wisdom about long-held bonds." --People,
Book of the Week
"Enthralling, masterfully written...rich with social and psychological
insights." --The New York Times Book Review
"A magnificent storytelling feat." --The Boston Globe
The "utterly engrossing, sweeping" (Time) story of a lifelong
friendship between two very different "superbly depicted" (The Wall
Street Journal) women with shared histories, divisive loyalties, hidden
sorrows, and eighty years of summers on a pristine point of land on the
coast of Maine, set across the arc of the 20th century.
Celebrated children's book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her
legacy--to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her
pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming,
to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as
Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince
shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those
shareholders is her best friend, Polly.
Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a
well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her
husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She
strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships,
and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the
wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons--but what is
it that Polly wants herself?
Agnes's designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book
editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her
memoirs. Agnes's resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and
secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all.
"An ambitious and satisfying tale" (The Washington Post), Fellowship
Point reads like a 19th-century epic, but it is entirely contemporary
in its "reflections on aging, writing, stewardship, legacies,
independence, and responsibility. At its heart, Fellowship Point is
about caring for the places and people we love...This magnificent novel
affirms that change and growth are possible at any age" (The Christian
Science Monitor).