FICTION

Pete and Alice in Maine

by Caitlin Shetterly
Harper. Jun. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780063242661. $28.99. F
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DEBUT COVID is ripping through New York City, sirens are wailing 24/7, and Alice insists to Pete that they take their two school-age daughters to their unheated summer home on Verona Island, off the coast of Maine. Pete works remotely as a successful investment banker, but Alice’s writing for the theater has been stalled by motherhood. Their marriage, already frayed by Pete’s infidelity, is further rubbed raw by their squabbling, challenging children, the uncertainty of the disease, and their spiking desire for each other. Alice’s distrust of Pete and his attempts to atone are complicated by an uncertain future; a return to their life as a family of privilege in the big city is growing ever more elusive.
VERDICT Following the widely acclaimed Modified: GMOs and the Threat to Our Food, Our Land, Our Future, Maine resident Shetterly has written a masterly debut novel about the first year of the plague and its corrosive effects on one family in the United States struggling to survive intact. Readers will be hard-pressed to leave this story behind.
Reviewed by Beth E. Andersen , Jun 02, 2023
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