Synopses & Reviews
"To Sterba, his beloved's cabin is an enchanted castle by the sea, and like its fairy-tale prototype, Frankie's place imposes mysterious laws and rituals, which the aspirant must master before he is deemed an acceptable consort. His prize is, indeed, a woman of daunting attributes: 'She was blond, tall, beautiful, smart, famous, and scary.'" -The Los Angeles Times Book Review
A Tracy-Hepburn romance in which a down-to-earth newspaperman charms a New York sophisticate and brings her down a notch, while she teaches him a thing or two.
Frankie's Place, A Love Story, is a portrait of a place and a marriage. It's about a sophisticated, blond New York City intellectual who falls for a Michigan farm boy turned foreign correspondent.
Every year after the long Manhattan winter, Frances FitzGerald, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Fire in the Lake, heads north to Mount Desert Island to spend the summer writing. Her simple cottage looks over a cove, part of Somes Sound, which is full of sailboats and lobster buoys. People come to visit and one year Jim Sterba, an acquaintance, comes to for a week, and then the next year it's two, until gradually he becomes a fixture in her life for the whole summer.
The story chronicles one particular summer that Jim and Frankie are spending at Frankie's place, a spot Jim considers "the perfect writer's retreat." "Frankie's place couldn't be special to me without Frankie. The cozy house, the woods and water, the lovely views and the extraordinary island were part of a stage on which our relationship grew...."
Immediately upon arriving, they start the summer with a swim in the icy ocean, and a morning plunge will begin every day thereafter. Sterba charmingly depicts their busy routine in Maine of writing straight through the core of the day, and filling late afternoons-at four o'clock all work stopped-then there are arduous hikes, blueberry-picking, mussel-gathering, and scavenging for mushrooms. Wonderful recipes including ingredients from the fruit of their labor appear throughout the book-this is true Yankee cooking with corn roasted fully husked in the oven, and Frankie engaged in the gruesome art of killing the lobster.
Jim loves everything quirky, odd, and old-fashioned about the nearest village to the house - from its bizarre Camden Marine Radio where he eavesdrops on lonely fisherman speaking out into the night, to its weather station which monitors the constant push and pull of frontal systems that affect the delicate coastline, to Mr. Pyle, who is at once the town's cop, the librarian, and part-time soda jerk.
Interwoven are flashbacks - we hear about Sterba's burgeoning career as a journalist, his intense years as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and why he switches to writing for The Wall Street Journal. Growing up on a struggling dairy farm in Michigan, young Jim was responsible for all the strenuous and constant farm chores. In stark contrast, Frankie's family goes back to the earliest settlers of Boston. The Parkmans and the Peabodys are from Boston (including Endicott Peabody, founder of the Groton School), and the FitzGeralds are of New York. Her mother, Marietta Tree was a socialite and a big Democrat, who was married first to Frankie's father, CIA operative Desmond FitzGerald, and then to an Englishman Ronald Tree. Frankie's life as an only child, spirited between ritzy Manhattan and a grand estate in England, was lonely. At one point, she told Jim that while living in the English castle Ditchley, it was so large she could never find her mother in its twenty-six bedrooms. So, Frankie's house becomes a place for both of them to find substantive rest, spiritual space, and loving comfort. It is for both their first real home.
As fall approaches, Jim and Frankie head back to New York for their "second autumn" (New York's leaves turning later than Maine's), and for a long winter in a new apartment where they have finally moved in together. Previous years had gone by where both were unable to give up their old digs, essentially overgrown work places. The book closes with a conversation Frankie's Uncle George is having with Jim, Frankie, and a few others about the family burial plot. A family stone of red granite with the inscription-Peabody--has been placed there, bayberry bushes have been planted, and Uncle George mentions a space available and asks whether Jim would be interested. Jim is completely taken aback. He can't imagine any other place he would want to be forever. He says yes.
Frankie's Place is the generous portrait of both a place and a marriage that Sterba develops with wry, loving detail.
Review
"This is a work suffused with love of every stripe, from the romantic kind to the kind one might feel for a place, a way of life and a really good dinner.... This is a beautiful memoir, giving a glimpse not just of a person but of a time and a place worth noting." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Charming,funny,full of insights into the way we live today,and it's the story of one man's lifelong search for a home." David Halberstam
Review
"Drawing on a persona that is equal parts foreign correspondent and farm boy, Sterba weaves together a charming series of vignettes." GraceAnne DeCandido, Booklist
Review
"Frankie's Place has tremendous natural charm, the witty and wonderfully observed narrative of a summers action Down East." Ward Just
Review
"Sterba made his name as a restless, gifted journalistic explorer. We can do ourselves the favor of reading Frankie's Place." Michael Janeway
Review
"A wonderful love story
An honest, often hilariously funny book that tells a love story you'll not soon forget." Peter Duchin
Review
"Quite simply a joy to read a portrait of a place, a way of life, and a marriage." Joan Didion
Synopsis
Imagine a secluded little house in the woods by the sea on the Maine coast. Down a bumpy lane, out of harms way and the clamor of the modern world, Frankies Place is a sublime summer retreat, with mussel beds out front, blackberry bushes out back, evergreens all around, and lovely views of forested mountains and a glacier-carved fjord full of lobster buoys, seabirds and sailboats.
One summer, Jim Sterba, veteran war correspondent, accepts an invitation for a weekend visit from a woman he barely knows author Frances FitzGerald. He arrives and discovers a perfect writers nest. He visits against in the fall. The next summer he stays for a week, and gradually falls in love with his host as much as her place.
Icy plunges into Somes Sound christen their island mornings, and long periods of dutiful writing are following with rigorous mountain walks, forays for wild mushrooms and sailing. In the evenings, Jim and Frankie prepare simple meals with local ingredients. These two couldnt have had more disparate childhoods Jim grew up on a struggling Michigan farm while Frankie lived in a Manhattan townhouse and an English country estate. But their intelligence, ambition, and independence propelled them both into writing careers and kept them single until they met each other later in life. In this Tracy-Hepburn romance, the down-to-earth newspaperman charms the sophisticated New Yorker their long path to real love makes us cheer Jim on as he walks up a mountain to propose to Frankie, and has us itching for a visit to Mount Desert Island.
Synopsis
In this Tracy-Hepburn romance a sophisticated New York intellectual is charmed by a down-to-earth newspaperman. Frankie's Place is the tale of a summer cottage and the story that unfolds under its roof. Jim Sterba is the down-to-earth newspaperman who charms the New York sophisticate, Frances FitzGerald, after several visits to her writer's retreat on the coast in Maine. Frankie's place is a secluded little house out of harm's way and the clamor of the modern world. Icy plunges into the Somes Sound christen their island mornings; then there is a long period of dutiful writing followed, in the late afternoon, by rigorous mountain walks, forays for wild mushrooms, and sailing. In the evenings Jim and Frankie prepare simple island meals as they talk about everything from the stories or books they're working on to the bigger issue of Jim's reunion with his long-lost father. Although they couldn't have had more disparate childhoodsJim grew up on a struggling Michigan farm while Frankie lived in a Manhattan town house and an English country estatetheir shared summer rituals have them falling in love before our eyes.
About the Author
Raised in rural Michigan, Jim Sterba became a foreign correspondent covering the Vietnam War for The New York Times. He has written about Asia and America for more than three decades, first for the Times, and now The Wall Street Journal.