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Amagansett by Mark Mills June 26, 2023
Amagansett by Call Number: F MillsISBN: 9780399151842Publication Date: 2004-07-22A major debut novel that tells a mesmerizing story of love, death, and redemption in a small Long Island fishing community in 1947. Amagansettis a novel as sweeping and haunting as the landscape of sky and sea it evokes. Beautifully and powerfully told, it announces the arrival of a gifted writer who skillfully weaves together a delicate love story, a brutal murder, an unforgettable evocation of a place and time, and characters shaped by the epic forces of nature, class, war, and memory. Conrad Labarde is a first-generation Basque fisherman who casts his nets in the treacherous waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Living alone among the high dunes on the east end of Long Island, he is kept company only by the ghosts of war. He is a working-class man in a region sharply divided between those who farm and fish this isolated finger of land year-round, and the wealthy, who claim it every summer for seaside escape. But in postwar America, the landscape is changing quickly. And lives, too, will change dramatically when Conrad's nets pull in the body of a beautiful young woman, seaweed twined in her hair. Deputy Chief of Police Tom Hollis must traverse the shoals of class and community in order to determine if a crime has been committed and, if so, by whom. From the privileged family whose dead daughter was hiding a torturous secret, to the determined cop who seeks the truth, to the fisherman who is always one step ahead of him-they, and everyone else in Amagansett-will be touched by what the waves cast up that day.
June 26, 2023
June 26, 2023
We will be meeting on June 26 at 7pm via Zoom to discuss Amagansett by Mark Mills. Print copies are available at New City Library Express at 198 S. Main Street.
Mark Mills
Something About the Author
Born in Geneva, I grew up on a farm on the South Downs in Sussex. I was educated at Lancing College, near Brighton, where the Careers Officer suggested to me in my final year that I become an actuary. An actuary, I have since discovered, has something to do with calculating risk for insurance premiums, which I can only imagine requires a certain degree of numeracy. Given that I then went on to fail my Maths A Level (with a now-defunct ‘O’ grade), the insurance industry is surely better off without me.
After leaving Cambridge University, where I studied History and History of Art, I went to live in Italy, south of Siena. On returning to England a couple of years later, I got a job as a reader for Paramount Pictures, who had recently opened an office in London. Reading film scripts gradually gave way to writing them, and so things continued for a good decade.
My first book, The Whaleboat House (a.k.a. Amagansett), started life as a film idea, although it soon became clear that it was better suited to a novel. This marked a pleasing move into the world of written prose, of crime fiction. With five books now under my belt, and a sixth on the go, I still feel like a novice, and I can’t imagine that will ever change.
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Librarian
About Investigating Mysteries
Our group had been meeting once a month since September, 2005. We meet the fourth Monday of every month. If you love mysteries, why not investigate mysteries with us? New members are always welcome! Meetings begin at 7:00 P.M.