And that’s how Evie learned that not everyone can see the dead, and not everyone can draw a decent picture. But she could. She wasn’t a Leonardo da Vinci. Or a Rembrandt. But Evie Cooper learned over the years how to capture the true character of eyes, and lips, and noses. She learned to draw a curl so real it looked as if a comb had just passed through it. And maybe that’s why those souls who are restless and wandering seek her out. Her hand trembling that day, in the backseat of her parents’ car, Evie began to draw. First she sketched Rosemary Ann’s oval face and the tightly wound ringlets. She drew the bow-shaped mouth, the eyebrows that curved like thin rainbows over the dark eyes. She even drew the cross Rosemary Ann was wearing around her neck. Then Evie passed the notepad to her mother. Her father was staring out his window, the noise of spring floating through his side glass. He was staring at the life of Temple City, as it buzzed up and down the streets.
Evie’s mother took the pad but didn’t look right away at what Evie had drawn. “Don’t do this to yourself,” Evie heard her father say. He was watching Mr. Hanley, the town cop, as he went from parking meter to parking meter. Don’t do this to yourself, Rosemary Ann mimicked, and then she giggled. Evie’s mother lifted the pad and peered down. She said nothing at first. Then, “I’d forgotten about Rosemary Ann’s necklace,” she whispered. And that’s how Evie came to know that the girl’s name was Rosemary Ann. Her mother let the pad rest on her lap, carefully, as though it were a masterpiece she held there. And in a way, it was. It was Evie Cooper’s first picture. Crude though it was, it was her first sketch of the faces of the dead that would come to follow her through life. Evie’s father started the car and they drove home. Just before they turned the corner of Henderson Street, Evie looked up to see that Rosemary Ann was gone.
When Evie was sixteen, her mother showed her a large framed portrait that was still dusty from being kept in storage in the attic. It was of the little girl with the bow mouth, the girl Evie had drawn that day, the girl sitting with such confidence on the plush seat of the Kaiser. It was a portrait of Rosemary Ann Cooper. Her ringlets were tightly wound and framing the oval face. Her eyebrows were curved like thin rainbows over the dark eyes, which peered up at Evie in defiance, still mimicking. “She was your sister,” Evie’s mother said. “She died of a ruptured appendix, long before you were born. We put her between us in the car, Daddy and I. We were trying to get her to the hospital, but we didn’t make it. It was on Main Street, in front of the movie theater.”
After her parents died, Evie Cooper tried to leave the faces of the dead behind her. There was too much sadness in the eyes that appeared on her sketchpads, too much pain on the faces. So she moved from Pennsylvania to the bustle of New York City, hoping to find a certain peace. But the dead followed her. The dead aren’t bothered by distance, or road signs, or mountain ranges, or boundaries on maps. The dead pick up and travel. By the time Evie left the city and settled in Bixley, Maine, by the time she met Henry Munroe, she was making good money in tips at Murphy’s Tavern as a bartender. But she couldn’t live on that income alone. So, she eventually put a sign up on her front lawn: Evie Cooper, Spiritual Portraitist. By then, it seemed to Evie she was finally settled down. She was getting her life in shape. She had even told Henry Munroe that their affair was over. It had been a mistake, and now she was moving on. And she had held to that decision.
It had been twelve long months since the morning Evie heard the news, when Andy Southby stopped by the tavern and announced it to the regular customers, as if it were nothing more than the results of a ball game. Henry Munroe, dead at forty. “This is gonna kill Larry,” that’s what Evie thought. And then, the sadness hit her, right in the solar plexus, that spot that picks up the dead so sharp and so fast. Evie assumed Henry would stay close by, turning up behind Larry’s shoulder every time his brother came into the bar. But in the twelve months that he’d been gone, Henry never once bothered to peer at Evie through the veil that separates Bixley, Maine, from the other side. Not once. And Evie Cooper knew why. Henry was still mad at her.
A Year After Henry
Available August 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
An exquisite new novel from acclaimed author Cathie Pelletier.
Bixley, Maine. One year after Henry Munroe’s fatal heart attack at age forty-one, his doting parents, prudish wife, rebellious son, and wayward brother are still reeling. So is Evie Cooper, a bartender, self-proclaimed “spiritual portraitist,” and Henry’s former mistress. While his widow Jeanie struggles with the betrayal, Henry’s overbearing mother is making plans to hold a memorial service. As the date of the tribute draws closer and these worlds threaten to collide, the Munroes grapple with the frailty of their own lives and the knowledge that love is all that matters.
With her trademark wry wit and wisdom, Cathie Pelletier has crafted an elegant and surprisingly uplifting portrait of the many strange and inspiring forms that grief can take in the journey to overcoming loss.
Praise for Cathie Pelletier
“That master juggler of literary tears and laughter is at it again.” —Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone
“Nobody walks the knife-edge of hilarity and heartbreak more confidently than Pelletier.” —Richard Russo
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
A Wedding on the Banks
Available May 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
The typically tranquil backcountry town of Mattagash, Maine, is buzzing with news. Amy Joy Lawler, the last of Mattagash’s founding clan, just announced her engagement to Jean-Claude Cloutier—an outsider. Her scandalized mother takes to bed in protest while the rest of the town gleefully anticipates the social event of the year. As guests roll in, the no-good Giffords plot to steal wedding gifts and hubcaps, and motel owner Albert Pinkham devises new schemes to fill his cash register. Meanwhile, Amy Joy’s aunt downstate plots to return to Mattagash for good against her husband’s wishes, while her son carries on an affair with an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike.
When this volatile assortment gathers in church on the big day, hilarious and wacky results ensue. With wry humor and razor-sharp wit, Cathie Pelletier weaves a powerful story—at once outlandish and poignant—about family, heritage, and the often imperceptible ties that bind us together.
Praise for A Wedding on the Banks
“Another bawdy, poetic, crazy quilt of a book.” —New York Times Book Review
“A hilarious, high-spirited, it’s-great-to-be-alive hoot of a novel.” —Newsday
“As downright knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud a novel as I’ve read… [Pelletier] has clearly emerged as one of the very best.” —Washington Post Book World
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
The Weight of Winter
Available May 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
On the day of the first snowfall in Mattagash, Maine, the residents brace themselves for the long winter ahead. Mere survival will be hard; dealing with each other is another story.
As winter settles in, various Mattagashians careen from conundrum to conundrum, trying to save dying small businesses, caring for crabby loved ones, and stirring up gossip. Through it all, 107-year-old Mathilda Fennelson reflects on her life as the town’s oldest resident, born the year Mattagash was founded. Through her dreams and memories, she reveals the scrappy, strange, and earnest pioneer history of these people weighed down by their own existence.
At once funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, The Weight of Winter weaves together the lives of Mattagash’s residents as they struggle to survive another winter and the endless pressure of their collective history.
Praise for The Weight of Winter
“Frequently funny and always poignant.” —Library Journal
“Sharp stuff… Her sentences are powerful and unique as s
nowflakes.” —New York Times
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Beaming Sonny Home
Available July 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
Sixty-year-old Mattie Gifford lives alone in a little mushroom of a house in Mattagash, Maine, a town where everyone’s personal lives are as entwined as their family trees. Mattie’s three bossy daughters are accustomed to competing with their wayward brother Sonny for their mother’s attention. But one evening, Mattie discovers that her favorite child is the top news story—for taking two women and a poodle hostage in his ex-wife’s trailer. A madcap drama unfolds that enthralls not only Mattie, but also the rest of Mattagash…and soon, the entire country.
With Pelletier’s signature gift for storytelling, Beaming Sonny Home is a touching, memorable novel that explores the dignity and pain of motherhood—and the surprising ways in which hope can spring from sorrow.
Praise for Beaming Sonny Home:
“Hilarious… Another wry comic turn from Cathie Pelletier.” —New Yorker
“A small marvel of a book… Mattie is the most touching, funny, and drily astute heroine to come along since the irresistible eccentrics of Eudora Welty.” —Newsday
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Running the Bulls
Available August 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
In small-town Maine, unhappily retired Howard Woods is shaken awake one morning by his wife, who confesses to a devastating affair from years ago. To the utter dismay of his family, Howard refuses to forgive her. Instead, he vows to travel to Pamplona, Spain, in the footsteps of Hemingway to join the annual running of the bulls—and his life promptly descends into chaos. But how does a middle-aged homebody, who has never even done his own laundry, salvage his manhood and pride and learn how to rebuild his life on his own?
At once wickedly funny and achingly poignant, Running the Bulls is a testament to the fact that even when ordinary lives are thrown into chaos, love and common sense will eventually triumph.
Praise for Running the Bulls
“Cathie Pelletier’s Running the Bulls is a ribald, ruminating, and redemptive read.” —Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone
“Masterful work…subversive, humorous, and heartbreaking.” —Publishers Weekly
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
The Bubble Reputation
Available November 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
Rosemary O’Neal lived for eight years with William in a rambling country house in Maine. Then William committed suicide on a trip to London, leaving her with questions, anger, and no way to say good-bye. When her zany family descends on the house, bringing a tidal wave of casseroles and their own petty problems, Rosemary retreats with her cat from the chaos of the world around them. (Her cat understands human nature better than Homo sapiens anyway.) It takes an unsettling turn of events to shock her back into the pitfalls of living and realize that life is a fleeting experience to be carefully savored.
Award-winning author Cathie Pelletier has been called “a bitingly funny, highly original novelist.” In The Bubble Reputation, she redefines “dysfunctional” in this bittersweet, life-affirming story about the idiosyncrasies of family, the anguish of grief, and finding peace after chaos.
Praise for The Bubble Reputation
“Cathie Pelletier accomplishes what every great novelist should. She creates a place, invites you in, walks you around, talks to you, lets you see and feel and hear it, allows you to get to know the people.” —Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
A Marriage Made at Woodstock
Available December 2014 from Sourcebooks Landmark
Fred and Lorraine Stone met and fell in love at the famous music festival in upstate New York. But as all couples must, they grew up—just not in the same direction. Now in their forties, Fred has morphed into Frederick, a respectable accountant whose last vestige of his younger years is a vegetarian diet. Meanwhile, Lorraine goes by the name Chandra (that’s Sanskrit for changeable), an occasional psychology teacher and animal rights activist.
When Chandra suddenly moves out, Frederick begins to wonder whether they were as different on the inside as they had become on the outside. Upset, he turns back to that magical time in their lives, Woodstock, where they first fell in love. Can he discover what went wrong? Or has the atmosphere of free love and marital harmony left them behind?
Praise for A Marriage Made at Woodstock
“Cathie Pelletier…[is] in top form. The real marriage here is the natural union of humor and sadness.” —Richard Russo, author of Nobody’s Fool
For more Cathie Pelletier books, please visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo by Leslie Bowman
Cathie Pelletier was born and raised on the banks of the St. John River, at the end of the road in northern Maine. She is the author of eleven other novels, including The One-Way Bridge, The Weight of Winter (winner of the New England Book Award), and Running the Bulls (winner of the Paterson Prize for Fiction). As K. C. McKinnon, she has written two novels, both of which became television films. After years of living in Nashville, Tennessee; Toronto, Canada; and Eastman, Quebec, she has returned to Allagash, Maine, and the family homestead where she was born.
The Funeral Makers Page 29