Meg Cross lives in a small Maine town with a family that is too big, too loud, too everything.
Life in a small Maine town: where everyone is related by blood or marriage, where everyone knows everything there is to know about everyone else, and where there is no anonymity. So it seems for Meg Cross, living in an old farmhouse on the side of a mountain with her young niece, Maeve. It’s easy to fall in line with her family’s expectations, but easy, too, to resent them, when she’s certain there’s something more out there for her. Then tragedy strikes to the core of who and what she believes she is.
How does a person remake a life from all the broken pieces? Meg finds herself forced to re-examine all she formerly found important, and in the process, comes to realize that, though it might chafe, there is strength to be drawn from the place she comes from, and the people to whom she is truly known.
“The Book of the Mandolin Player is deeply affecting on so many levels that it is difficult to shake the story from the mind. Anne Britting Oleson’s soft touch and strong storytelling make this an exceptional debut novel.” — Frank O Smith, Review, Portland Press Herald
“It’s an interesting story, with characters, places and emotional atmosphere strongly reminiscent of those in Jennifer Wixson’s Sovereign novels — small-town Mainers, well-educated, wry-humored, grappling with problems of life, love and the pursuit of people who are chronically not there.” — Dana Wilde, Review, centralmaine.com
284 pp. ● 6×9
$15.95 (pb) ● $8.95 (eb)
ISBN 978-1-943837-04-5 (pb)
FICTION – Literary
FICTION – Maine
Anne Britting Oleson lives and writes from the side of a small mountain in Central Maine. She has published five novels, and three poetry chapbooks. She has three children, five grandchildren, and two cats. She is a great believer in the value of travel and small adventures.
Interview with Anne Britting Oleson by Venus Scribe