A former foreign correspondent for the "New York Times" describes his later-in-life love affair with New York sophisticate Frances FitzGerald, a romance marked by their summer visits to Mount Desert Island in Maine.
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Imagine a secluded little house in the woods by the sea on the Maine coast. Down a bumpy lane, out of harm's way and the clamor of the modern world, Frankie's 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 writer's nest. He visits again in the fall. The next summer he stays for a week, and gradually falls in love with his host as much as her place.These two couldn't have had more disparate childhoods - Jim grew up on a struggling Michigan farm while Frankie lived in a Manhattan town house 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.
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