Read The Funeral Makers Online
Authors: Cathie Pelletier
The Funeral Makers (29 page)
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 Cloutierâan 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 storyâat once outlandish and poignantâabout 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.” â
New York Times Book Review
“A hilarious, high-spirited, it's-great-to-be-alive hoot of a novel.” â
Newsday
“As downright knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud a novel as I've read⦠[Pelletier] has clearly emerged as one of the very best.” â
Washington Post Book World
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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.” â
Library Journal
“Sharp stuff⦠Her sentences are powerful and unique as snowflakes.” â
New York Times
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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 storyâfor 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 Mattagashâ¦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 motherhoodâand the surprising ways in which hope can spring from sorrow.
Praise for
Beaming Sonny Home
:
“Hilarious⦠Another wry comic turn from Cathie Pelletier.” â
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.” â
Newsday
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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 bullsâand 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.” âWally Lamb, author of
She's Come Undone
“Masterful workâ¦subversive, humorous, and heartbreaking.” â
Publishers Weekly
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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.” âFannie Flagg, author of
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
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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 upâjust 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 Pelletierâ¦[is] in top form. The real marriage here is the natural union of humor and sadness.” âRichard Russo, author of
Nobody's Fool
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