The End of the Point

by Elizabeth Graver

Overview

Longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction

Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts, has anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who summer along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change. That summer, the two older Porter girls—teenagers Helen and Dossie—run wild while their only brother, Charlie, goes off to train for war. The children’s Scottish nurse, Bea, falls in love. And youngest daughter Janie is entangled in an incident that cuts the season short. 

An unforgettable portrait of one family’s journey through the second half of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Graver’s The End of the Point artfully probes the hairline fractures hidden beneath the surface of our lives and traces the fragile and enduring bonds that connect us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062184849
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/05/2013
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Graver is the author of the novels Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling; her short story collection Have You Seen Me? won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She is the mother of two daughters, and teaches English and creative writing at Boston College.

What People are Saying About This

Margot Livesey

“Is it possible for a novel to be at once cunning and magnificent, epic and compressed, topical and timeless? Yes, yes, yes, in the case of Elizabeth Graver’s gorgeous The End of the Point.”

Stewart O'Nan

“The End of the Point is intimate and rich and compelling, a sprawling saga that evokes both the wildness and fragility of the New England coast.”

Lily King

“An engrossing and intimate portrait of a New England family and the patch of land that gives them solace, generation after generation, when other people cannot. Graver’s writing is simply stunning on every page, and she has gone deep under the skin of these characters to create this magnificent novel.”

Leah Hager Cohen

“Elizabeth Graver is an uncommonly fine writer: dancingly in command of language, yet always, foremost, faithful to something quieter and more essential - call it the complexities of truth. The ambitious scope of her new novel is beautifully matched by her largeness of spirit. I would read anything this author writes.”

Edith Pearlman

“This absorbing novel spans half a century, and deals with war, love, illness, frustration, ambition, politics—and most particularly with place and its meaning. I was embedded in The End of the Point—not so much reading it as living it: a deep and singular experience.”

Gish Jen

“In this globalized age, with everyone talking about migration, here comes Elizabeth Graver to remind us of just what place can mean. The attachment in this gorgeously written, enormously moving book transcends time and personality. It is deep, extraordinarily ordinary, and finally provocative.”

Ron Rash

“One place and one family are inextricably linked in this marvelous novel. Elizabeth Graver writes with a painter’s attentiveness to detail, and creates from these particulars a vivid rendering of American life from 1942 to the century’s end.”

Editorial Reviews

Graver's past fiction has been enriched by its roots in the landscapes of upstate New York and New England, by her lush descriptions of the natural world. In The End of the Point…she uses that skill to appeal to the nostalgia of anyone with fond memories of escaping to a seaside refuge…where the pages of books immediately turn limp and cherished rituals (the morning walk, the afternoon swim, the pause to watch the sunset) are punctuated by hours and hours of the freedom to do anything, or nothing…Graver's engaging, expansive storytelling allows us to take up residence inside the minds of a host of different characters, watching as they create their own pictures of the world around them, as they invest certain places and people with mythic significance.

The New York Times Book Review - Alida Becker

It’s 1942, and the Porters are coming back to Ashaunt, Mass., the piece of the New England coast they’ve always come back to, no matter that the Army is building barracks and viewing platforms there. Graver (Awake) opens her fourth novel with a beautifully evoked glimpse of the very first arrival at Ashaunt—that of the Europeans—and the native people’s eventual sale (or, alternately, “bargain, theft, or gift”) of the land. She then moves omnisciently and believably through the minds of Bea, the Porters’ Scottish nanny, and the wild Helen, the oldest daughter. As 1942 gives way to 1947, 1961, then 1970, and finally 1999, Graver also moves fluidly across time, all on this same beloved piece of land. Bea is a wonderful character, and Graver is incredibly good at evoking past, present, and future, and the ways in which they intersect. Unfortunately, the latter sections of the book, which focus mostly on Helen, no longer a wild girl, and her adult son Charlie, aren’t quite as strong, perhaps because the issues of generational strife, blowback from drug use, and land development are more familiar. That said, Graver’s gifts—her control of time, her ability to evoke place and define character—are immense. Agent: Richard Parks, the Richard Parks Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Graver takes an eloquent, balanced look at the power of place and time and the evolution of a family of flawed but relatable characters, building a subtle symphony that unfolds over decades….Graver is a master at showing how beautifully ordinary people survive the twists and turns of everyday life.

The Millions

This absorbing novel spans half a century, and deals with war, love, illness, frustration, ambition, politics—and most particularly with place and its meaning. I was embedded in The End of the Point—not so much reading it as living it: a deep and singular experience.

Edith Pearlman

In this globalized age, with everyone talking about migration, here comes Elizabeth Graver to remind us of just what place can mean. The attachment in this gorgeously written, enormously moving book transcends time and personality. It is deep, extraordinarily ordinary, and finally provocative.

Gish Jen

The End of the Point is intimate and rich and compelling, a sprawling saga that evokes both the wildness and fragility of the New England coast.

Stewart O'Nan

Elizabeth Graver is an uncommonly fine writer: dancingly in command of language, yet always, foremost, faithful to something quieter and more essential - call it the complexities of truth. The ambitious scope of her new novel is beautifully matched by her largeness of spirit. I would read anything this author writes.

Leah Hager Cohen

Eloquent ….Graver’s engaging, expansive storytelling allows us to take up residence inside the minds of a host of different characters, watching as they create their own pictures of the world around them, as they invest certain places and people with mythic significance.

New York Times Book Review

With her fourth and most emotionally textured novel, Graver proves herself a master chronicler of the ever-spiraling human comedy. The End of the Point is a work of uncommon gracefulness, as much in its boundless empathy as in the luminosity of its prose.

Boston Globe

With a style and voice reminiscent of William Trevor and Graham Swift, Graver’s powerfully evocative portrait of a family strained by events both large and small celebrates the indelible influence certain places can exert over the people who love them.

Booklist (starred review)

An engrossing and intimate portrait of a New England family and the patch of land that gives them solace, generation after generation, when other people cannot. Graver’s writing is simply stunning on every page, and she has gone deep under the skin of these characters to create this magnificent novel.

Lily King

Is it possible for a novel to be at once cunning and magnificent, epic and compressed, topical and timeless? Yes, yes, yes, in the case of Elizabeth Graver’s gorgeous The End of the Point.

Margot Livesey

One place and one family are inextricably linked in this marvelous novel. Elizabeth Graver writes with a painter’s attentiveness to detail, and creates from these particulars a vivid rendering of American life from 1942 to the century’s end.

Ron Rash

"With a style and voice reminiscent of William Trevor and Graham Swift, Graver’s powerfully evocative portrait of a family strained by events both large and small celebrates the indelible influence certain places can exert over the people who love them."

Carol Haggas

The Porter family, which has summered for generations at Ashaunt Point, a spit of land pushing into Buzzards Bay, MA, is entirely unsettled when the U.S. Army arrives there in 1942. The next generation tries and fails to find escape at Ashaunt Point as Vietnam looms. From Drue Henz Literature Prize winner Graver; perhaps not the biggest title here, but it's loved in house.

Library Journal

This multigenerational story of a privileged family's vacations on Massachusetts' Buzzards Bay is as much about the place as the people. In 1942, wheelchair-bound insurance executive Mr. Porter (shades of FDR), his stoic wife, three daughters--beloved oldest son Charlie is off training to be a pilot--and gardening expert mother, along with assorted staff, are one of the few families summering at Ashaunt Point, where an Army base has been temporarily set up nearby. Graver (Awake, 2004, etc.) introduces the family members, particularly the bright, slightly rebellious 16-year-old Helen, in sharp, nuanced sketches while focusing on Bea, the family's Scottish nursemaid, who is devoted to youngest daughter, Jane. After the first true romance of her life, 34-year-old Bea turns down a soldier's marriage proposal in order to remain with the Porters. By 1947, Helen takes the story's center stage. Studying abroad, newly in love with ideas and a man, she writes reflective but girlishly innocent letters home. By the '60s, when Hurricane Donna hits Ashaunt, all three sisters have married. While Jane seems conventionally happy and middle sister Dossy suffers from bouts of clinical depression, Helen is still trying to find her way. Pregnant with her fourth child while enrolled in graduate school, she feels torn between love of family and growing intellectual ambitions. A decade later, Helen's troubled oldest son, Charlie, named after the uncle who was killed in World War II and always Helen's favorite, moves into a cabin on the peninsula, which he finds threatened by encroaching development. Helen and Charlie's difficult but enduring mother–son relationship is particularly moving, but every character is given his/her emotional due. As one generation passes to the next, Ashaunt Point remains the gently wild refuge where the Porters can most be themselves. A lovely family portrait: elegiac yet contemporary, formal yet intimate.

Kirkus Reviews

An excellent choice for book clubs.

Pamela Mann

With her fourth and most emotionally textured novel, Graver proves herself a master chronicler of the ever-spiraling human comedy. The End of the Point is a work of uncommon gracefulness, as much in its boundless empathy as in the luminosity of its prose.

Jan Stuart

Eloquent ….Graver’s engaging, expansive storytelling allows us to take up residence inside the minds of a host of different characters, watching as they create their own pictures of the world around them, as they invest certain places and people with mythic significance.

Alida Becker

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