The novel's ending is particularly startling-a memorable final note in this cogent examination of marital infidelity and betrayal.' Cheek does a good job with his cast Henry and Effie are finely drawn and their slide from innocence starkly depicted.

'Cheek's strong debut is a psychodrama that shows just how easily people can be manipulated. The author's perceptive exploration of innocence and experience, corruption and betrayal, makes for compelling reading.'

'This erotic debut novel will draw in readers and stay with them. 'This remarkable debut novel offers a sobering reminder of how the possibilities of life, when first encountered, often carry their own riptide.' The 1950s setting, the pellucid prose, and the propulsive plot make this very steamy debut novel about morality and desire feel like a classic.' It soon reveals itself as a swirling vortex of psychological suspense with insights about marriage that recall writers like Margot Livesey and Alice Munro. 'Deceptively relaxed and simple at first, the novel seems to be an easygoing trip down Memory Lane.

The book has superb prose, acute psychological insights, and a riveting narrative though it's impossible to put down once you've started, to call it a 'summer read' is dismissive of Cheek's carefully wrought artfulness.' ( From the publisher.'Chip Cheek's Cape May is a debut novel about a young, virginal Southern couple on their off-season honeymoon in 1957 to the titular seaside community in New Jersey, where they come under the spell of a sophisticated older couple. The empty beach town becomes their playground, and as they sneak into abandoned summer homes, go sailing, walk naked under the stars, make love, and drink a great deal of gin, Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences.Įrotic and moving, this is a novel about marriage, love and sexuality, and the lifelong repercussions that meeting a group of debauched cosmopolitans has on a new marriage. Clara, a beautiful socialite who feels her youth slipping away Max, a wealthy playboy and Clara’s lover and Alma, Max’s aloof and mysterious half-sister, to whom Henry is irresistibly drawn. Feeling shy of each other and isolated, they decide to cut the trip short.īut before they leave, they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. A mesmerizing debut novel by Chip Cheek, Cape May explores the social and sexual mores of 1950s America through the eyes of a newly married couple from the genteel south corrupted by sophisticated New England urbanites.

Chip cheek books