Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark
Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark
1 Rating(s)
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Fellowship Point

Author: Alice Elliott Dark

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 19 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/05/2022

Categories: Fiction, Women, Sagas, Friendship


Synopsis

“A magnificent storytelling feat” (The Boston Globe) story of lifelong friendship between two very different “superbly depicted” (The Wall Street Journal) women with shared histories, divisive loyalties, hidden sorrows, and eighty years of summers on a pristine point of land on the coast of Maine, set across the arc of the 20th century.

Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly.

Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself?

Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all.

“An ambitious and satisfying tale” (The Washington Post), Fellowship Point reads like a 19th-century epic, but it is entirely contemporary in its “reflections on aging, writing, stewardship, legacies, independence, and responsibility. At its heart, Fellowship Point is about caring for the places and people we love...This magnificent novel affirms that change and growth are possible at any age” (The Christian Science Monitor).

About Alice Elliott Dark

Alice Elliott Dark is the author the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, as well as two collections of short stories, In the Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in The New YorkerHarper’sThe New York Times, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry: Prize Stories, among othersHer award-winning story “In the Gloaming” was made into two films and was chosen for inclusion in Best American Stories of the Century. Dark is a past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is an associate professor at Rutgers-Newark in the MFA program.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Anne on September 01, 2022

This is a 2022 Modern Mrs Darcy Summer Reading Guide selection. This sprawling saga featuring two octogenarian protagonists reads like a 19th century novel. Agnes Lee and Polly Wister have been friends their whole lives, growing up alongside each other in Philadelphia Quaker families and summering to......more

Goodreads review by Julie on December 02, 2022

Swept away. That's how I felt reading Fellowship Point. It's an immersive read in the way of Austen and Hardy, Rosamund Pilcher and Colleen McCullough, with the grounded New England sensibilities of Elizabeth Strout and Edith Wharton. It is a celebration of old women and the lives they have lived an......more

Goodreads review by Geonn on December 22, 2021

This is a very good and well-written book, but by the halfway point (maybe 1/3) I found myself wishing things would just hurry up and move along. I liked the story and the characters but it felt like we were being spoon-fed their every action for every day (this is hyperbole, it did do a lot of time......more

Goodreads review by Darla on July 05, 2022

I loved someone. Who have you loved in your life? Agnes and Polly are best friends for decades. They also are part owners of a land trust for Fellowship Point. As the two draw nearer to the end of their lives, they are determined to keep the point from greedy developers. But will the other owners sup......more

Goodreads review by Belle on July 23, 2022

Holy Old Ladies! This may be a lifetime best read for me. It resonated in a way that I’ve been waiting for for a long time now. How refreshing to be led by brilliant sparkling old ladies through this journey! It has been so fresh and freeing. If you read my reviews you know they and I flair to the d......more


Quotes

"Dark, a Philadelphia native who grew up spending summers in Maine, lovingly renders the New England setting and the strong, determined people without turning them into stereotypes.

And Campbell, winner of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards, provides her usual strong, empathetic reading."

"Campbell’s gentle narration reveals long-held family secrets, and close friendships come under fire. Campbell’s well-rounded characterizations are delightful, including Polly’s hesitant sweetness and Agnes's gruff impatience and no-nonsense directness. Though lengthy, listeners will gladly follow this absorbing story to its satisfying conclusion."