Genre Fiction
![Alice Elliott Dark - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001H9XYMO.jpg)
Fellowship Point: A Novel
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR MOTHER'S DAY!
"A magnificent storytelling feat" (The Boston Globe) story of 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).
"A magnificent storytelling feat" (The Boston Globe) story of 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).
Editorial Reviews
"It is very much an epic read, a book for readers who want to settle in for a story at a near whopping 600 pages by the author of one of my favorite short stories ever, 'In the Gloaming.'"
-John Searles, NYTimes-Bestselling Author of Strange but True, via The Today Show "5 Summer Reads You Won't Want to Put Down"
"A sweeping story of lifelong best friends...you will surely want to read this book. Elegantly structured, beautifully written, and altogether diverting, with a powerful message about land ownership in America."
-Kirkus (Starred Review)
"Dark (Think of England) celebrates women's friendships and artistic mentorship in this expansive yet intimate novel. The families and their grudges and grievances fill a broad canvas, and within it Dark delves deeply into the relationships between Agnes and her work, humans and the land, mothers and children, and, most indelibly, the sustenance and joy provided by a long-held female friendship. It's a remarkable achievement."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Fellowship Point is a marvel. Intricately constructed, utterly unique, this novel set on the coast of Maine is filled with insights about writing, about the perils and freedoms of aging, about the great mysteries, as well as the pleasures, of life. The story about the relationships between three women unfolds, as life does, through joys and losses, confrontations and confessions, with twists along the way that change your perception of all that came before. This is a world is so closely and acutely observed that I felt I lived in it. I was sorry to leave."
-Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"I can't remember the last time I've fallen so hard for a book. Fellowship Point is about many things: friendship, secrets, legacy, love, family-but the true magic here is in the writing. Alice Elliott Dark has conjured a world so immersive I can still feel it in my bones. I mourned the finish, when I would have to leave behind the characters I grew to love. This captivating, unforgettable novel is thrillingly good." -
-John Searles, NYTimes-Bestselling Author of Strange but True, via The Today Show "5 Summer Reads You Won't Want to Put Down"
"A sweeping story of lifelong best friends...you will surely want to read this book. Elegantly structured, beautifully written, and altogether diverting, with a powerful message about land ownership in America."
-Kirkus (Starred Review)
"Dark (Think of England) celebrates women's friendships and artistic mentorship in this expansive yet intimate novel. The families and their grudges and grievances fill a broad canvas, and within it Dark delves deeply into the relationships between Agnes and her work, humans and the land, mothers and children, and, most indelibly, the sustenance and joy provided by a long-held female friendship. It's a remarkable achievement."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Fellowship Point is a marvel. Intricately constructed, utterly unique, this novel set on the coast of Maine is filled with insights about writing, about the perils and freedoms of aging, about the great mysteries, as well as the pleasures, of life. The story about the relationships between three women unfolds, as life does, through joys and losses, confrontations and confessions, with twists along the way that change your perception of all that came before. This is a world is so closely and acutely observed that I felt I lived in it. I was sorry to leave."
-Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"I can't remember the last time I've fallen so hard for a book. Fellowship Point is about many things: friendship, secrets, legacy, love, family-but the true magic here is in the writing. Alice Elliott Dark has conjured a world so immersive I can still feel it in my bones. I mourned the finish, when I would have to leave behind the characters I grew to love. This captivating, unforgettable novel is thrillingly good." -
Readers Top Reviews
Joan VesperPeggy
I liked that Polly and Agnes were lifelong friends of intelligence and substance but chose different life paths--one, married, diffident, with kids; two, single, accomplished author, assertive. They both live part of each year in their Quaker-austere summer houses on an idyllic peninsula in Maine (and the rest of the year in multi-generational Philadelphia affluance). Birds, flora and fauna are described so that I feel like I'm walking those paths in wooded, coastal Maine. I don't like the broad strokes of some of the character description, including the use of cliches in the two women's dialogue and the silly undercurrents of "feminism." I'm with Agnes--not a feminist, just a human. I missed subtlety of characterization of the inner lives of these women. I was disappointed that two major newspaper reviewers (New York Times and Christian Science Monitor) judged the author's writing excellent. In this respect I was disappointed from page one. (My all time hero of characterization is Henry James.) I'm not quite finished with the book so the author's perspicacity regarding her characters may improve, The introduction in the second half of the book of a younger, complicatedly virtuous woman, Maud, adds complexity that appeals.
PABJoan VesperPeg
A story if two women on their 80s. One married the other not. It rang so try for me in terms of how people relate to single women and aging. To “friendships” and the way they can evolve or end. Or begin again. It’s about how those living alone think. It’s not full of idiotic clap trap and tedious stuff that women are usually portrayed doing. It paints a realistic Picture of the loneliness that living brings. And how to women coped. Emerging from the suffocating bore of her husband by his death. The fickleness of her sons. Her dealing with deaths of daughters. The other the loss of an imagined relationship. In a tragic way. That was suffered in silence. And her steadfastness. If one finds this boring too bad for them. It is a book I was sad to see end. The ladies became friends of sorts. As with many of the best, this novel may require some patience and effort to persevere through the first half. Most good novels do in the build up. At almost 600 pages itsxa long half way point but it is worth it. I found days went by it sat aside. But I was drawn in for chapters. As was “When the Crawdads Sing.” Both have the minds the main characters as base. Not a lot of action. But lively descriptions of the landscapes etc. and so memorable in the solitariness. Not for everyone and if lots of characters and pulp fiction is your thing, the crap most fiction relays about human relationships pass this up.
Happy RamblerPABJ
Like Agnes and Polly, I too am in my early 80s and my closest friend has been my confidante and comforter since grade school. Therefore, I recognized and empathized with Agnes and Polly's comments and concerns about aging and their occasionally difficult relationship. The writing style was beautiful. The plot has been discussed in many other reviews. Therefore, I'll confine my comments to the ending while trying to be nonspecific enough to avoid a spoiler. Alas, the final 50 or so pages regarding Agnes, Polly, and Nan were so impossible to believe that it seemed as if a different author (most likeLy one from Hallmark) had been hired to write them. No way could this have happened! The ending was almost an affront to an intelligent reader.
TiffHappy Rambler
This book was rich with different kinds of love and the complexity and tensions held in relationships. It was sweet, painful, evocative, harsh and kind. Give it a read, you won’t be disappointed.
JmarshallTiffHapp
What a wonderful book this was! I read it slowly, as it was one to savor. Written from the perspective of two 80-year-old best friends, which may sound boring, but was anything but! All of the main characters were interesting, smart, sometimes aggravating, but usually endearing.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1: Agnes, Philadelphia, March 2000 CHAPTER 1 Agnes, Philadelphia, March 2000
SUCH A PERFECT DAY FOR writing, gray and quiet. But nothing came to her. Not a sentence, not a phrase, not a word worth keeping. Her wastebasket was full. Her pile of index cards was robust. Graph paper covered with diagrams was neatly pinned to a sheet of felt on the wall. But the spot where her stack of usable pages usually accumulated was an empty nest.
This had never happened to her before. Agnes Lee had written six novels and dozens of books for children without hesitation, composing and rewriting and tossing, fearlessly killing her darlings, trusting many more would come along-not to mention volumes of journals and logs secreted in a captain's trunk in an attic room at the cottage, and lots of articles and essays under various witty pseudonyms. She might rewrite an entire manuscript, but she'd never before been at a loss at this juncture, after her research had produced new material and the time had come to sit down and draft the book. The words had always arrived. Her writing was on tap. All she had to do was pull down on the handle and out it flowed. That fact was at the center of her self-conception. She wrote. If she couldn't, if the tap was dry, then what?
This sorry state-that was what. She was racing through barrels of Rapidograph ink, and wearing down a new pencil sharpener. Yet her book, her novel, the work that would round out a series written over decades, had garnered a usable word count of zero. All winter, she'd gotten nothing done.
Agnes had lost hope for today, too, but her allotted writing time wasn't up yet. So she sat. Her rule was five hours, and dammit she'd put in five hours. Habits filled in the fissures of an aging body and mind, and she couldn't afford to let them go. She'd seen her mother attempt to do a few sit-ups on her deathbed, and though Agnes felt little but a generic filial regard for that soulless snob, in that moment she hoped she'd be as disciplined at the last. She kept an inviolable schedule, afforded by some inheritance and abetted by having had the vocation of writing for the last nearly sixty years. Rarely did she have to compromise for anyone, a privilege she did not take for granted and refused to squander. She was eighty, but she had not slowed down. Just the opposite. Her remaining work was urgent, and she was well aware of working alongside the specter of the unknown moment of her last breath.
Since Mrs. Blundt had placed the mail by Agnes's place at lunch, and her perusal of several of the items had brought agitation into her controlled small world, she'd been particularly distracted. She paced her room and looked out the window and paced again. She allowed herself to pace into the living room, too, as long as she kept her mind in her work. Mrs. Blundt had bought fragrant lilies and Agnes dropped her nose into their midst, inhaling heaven. She walked to the window next. She had a good view from her third-floor apartment. The brown flora and collapsed grass in Rittenhouse Square hung on with stoic forbearance. People crossing through had scarves in place of faces and bodies obscured by masses of cloth or fur. Every so often they looked up at the sky, and Agnes followed their gaze in search of early flakes. Snow was general all over Ireland. A line from Joyce's "The Dead." Her eyes pricked. She rarely cried at life, but certain turns of phrase prompted hot tears to sting her cheeks. She squeezed the bridge of her nose, pinching off the emotion. Blizzard, she thought, a word that cooled her off. A blizzard was predicted that would leave a few inches over Philadelphia. The prospect of a rinsed landscape replete with glistening branches and snowmen in the Square cheered her. Refreshed, she returned to her writing room.
Agnes was well aware she could afford to be moved by snow. Mrs. Blundt, her housekeeper, kept her shelves stocked and the domestic details of her winter life on course. Snow would fall over all the living and the dead, and Agnes would have a couple of days of privacy and silence. Perhaps in that quiet she'd find what she needed to begin. An image; a character's voice; a sentence that contained a seed from which the next sentence could grow. Something that would open this cage. Writing had been the one place where she had felt-free. And also on Fellowship Point. Always free there.
She pulled the blank pad in front of her. Fifty-three minutes to go. Frustrated, bewildered, she suffered in silence and could complain to no one. She drew a horse and quickly scribbled over it.
She had a bifurcated writing career, both parts successful, bu...
SUCH A PERFECT DAY FOR writing, gray and quiet. But nothing came to her. Not a sentence, not a phrase, not a word worth keeping. Her wastebasket was full. Her pile of index cards was robust. Graph paper covered with diagrams was neatly pinned to a sheet of felt on the wall. But the spot where her stack of usable pages usually accumulated was an empty nest.
This had never happened to her before. Agnes Lee had written six novels and dozens of books for children without hesitation, composing and rewriting and tossing, fearlessly killing her darlings, trusting many more would come along-not to mention volumes of journals and logs secreted in a captain's trunk in an attic room at the cottage, and lots of articles and essays under various witty pseudonyms. She might rewrite an entire manuscript, but she'd never before been at a loss at this juncture, after her research had produced new material and the time had come to sit down and draft the book. The words had always arrived. Her writing was on tap. All she had to do was pull down on the handle and out it flowed. That fact was at the center of her self-conception. She wrote. If she couldn't, if the tap was dry, then what?
This sorry state-that was what. She was racing through barrels of Rapidograph ink, and wearing down a new pencil sharpener. Yet her book, her novel, the work that would round out a series written over decades, had garnered a usable word count of zero. All winter, she'd gotten nothing done.
Agnes had lost hope for today, too, but her allotted writing time wasn't up yet. So she sat. Her rule was five hours, and dammit she'd put in five hours. Habits filled in the fissures of an aging body and mind, and she couldn't afford to let them go. She'd seen her mother attempt to do a few sit-ups on her deathbed, and though Agnes felt little but a generic filial regard for that soulless snob, in that moment she hoped she'd be as disciplined at the last. She kept an inviolable schedule, afforded by some inheritance and abetted by having had the vocation of writing for the last nearly sixty years. Rarely did she have to compromise for anyone, a privilege she did not take for granted and refused to squander. She was eighty, but she had not slowed down. Just the opposite. Her remaining work was urgent, and she was well aware of working alongside the specter of the unknown moment of her last breath.
Since Mrs. Blundt had placed the mail by Agnes's place at lunch, and her perusal of several of the items had brought agitation into her controlled small world, she'd been particularly distracted. She paced her room and looked out the window and paced again. She allowed herself to pace into the living room, too, as long as she kept her mind in her work. Mrs. Blundt had bought fragrant lilies and Agnes dropped her nose into their midst, inhaling heaven. She walked to the window next. She had a good view from her third-floor apartment. The brown flora and collapsed grass in Rittenhouse Square hung on with stoic forbearance. People crossing through had scarves in place of faces and bodies obscured by masses of cloth or fur. Every so often they looked up at the sky, and Agnes followed their gaze in search of early flakes. Snow was general all over Ireland. A line from Joyce's "The Dead." Her eyes pricked. She rarely cried at life, but certain turns of phrase prompted hot tears to sting her cheeks. She squeezed the bridge of her nose, pinching off the emotion. Blizzard, she thought, a word that cooled her off. A blizzard was predicted that would leave a few inches over Philadelphia. The prospect of a rinsed landscape replete with glistening branches and snowmen in the Square cheered her. Refreshed, she returned to her writing room.
Agnes was well aware she could afford to be moved by snow. Mrs. Blundt, her housekeeper, kept her shelves stocked and the domestic details of her winter life on course. Snow would fall over all the living and the dead, and Agnes would have a couple of days of privacy and silence. Perhaps in that quiet she'd find what she needed to begin. An image; a character's voice; a sentence that contained a seed from which the next sentence could grow. Something that would open this cage. Writing had been the one place where she had felt-free. And also on Fellowship Point. Always free there.
She pulled the blank pad in front of her. Fifty-three minutes to go. Frustrated, bewildered, she suffered in silence and could complain to no one. She drew a horse and quickly scribbled over it.
She had a bifurcated writing career, both parts successful, bu...
