The Novels of Mason’s Retreat
With the publication of On the Tobacco Coast, Christopher Tilghman has completed his quartet of novels about an historic Chesapeake Bay farm called Mason’s Retreat. “. . . One of the epic projects in recent American literature” says novelist Jonathan Dee.
Author Chris Tilghman
Photo: Jill Meriwether
The Depression is raging and the Second World War is brewing, and an American ex-patriot family returns to a decaying family mansion on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. “Rich. . . bewitching. . . unforgettably rendered. . . .” Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times.
In Reconstruction Maryland, a new generation attempts to remake the farm called Mason’s Retreat, but the blight of the slaveholding past remains. “Tilghman’s exquisite third novel returns to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to prefigure the events of his first, Mason’s Retreat. . . . The tale’s descent into tragedy is nevertheless beautiful.” Publisher’s Weekly, (starred review)
A young interracial couple from America tests the tolerance of Belle Époque France and its own commitment to a marriage that could not be permitted in Post-Reconstruction Maryland. “Lushly written . . . .A recurring theme of innocent, even naïve Americans . . . recalls Henry James, as do the novel’s astute psychological insights. . . . seductively lovely” – Kirkus Reviews