A nameless female writer has come to Dunnet Landing, a small town on the coast of Maine, for the summer in order to finish her manuscript. Once there, she finds herself absorbed in the rhythms of daily life, which come at a much-altered pace than the city she’s left behind. Her observations of the residents of Dunnet Landing—their loves, their fights, their occupation with sky and sea and land, their tall tales, and their quiet secrets—comprise
The Country of the Pointed Firs. It is a novel made seemingly from the very fabric of community. Jewett’s beautiful, delicate descriptions and her wonderfully natural dialogue bring the whole town and its many inhabitants to life.
Once described by Henry James as Jewett’s “beautiful little quantum of achievement, ”
The Country of the Pointed Firs is a stunning testament to the power of place and memory.
About the author
Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is the 2022-2023 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He is an Acquiring Editor at Unnamed Press and co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics.