Every summer, Lily’s family—her father Weston, mother Lydia, and older sister Dodie—goes to Cape Cod to vacation near her father’s brother (Uncle George) and his family: Aunt Fanny, their children Digory and Nicole…and Uncle George’s good friend, Gloria. This year Lily’s father is building them a house to rival Uncle George’s—without quite having the money to finish it.

Lily’s mother, an accomplished pianist who finds her main comfort in playing several hours every day, is frustrated by her husband’s rivalry with his brother—his need to outdo or at least equal him, even at great cost to the family. She has her own internal struggles, as well; her daughter thinks she’s “like a teacup, spilled out and upside down on the saucer,” and unable to right herself. Her father Weston, in turn, clashes with Lydia’s arrogant and selfish mother (referred to by all with the full-barreled title “Bertha Melrose”) and worries about finishing his dissertation in time to get the raise he needs to provide for his family. Fanny drifts hazily in a world of her own while Uncle George needles his brother and lashes out at those around him. Gloria tries to keep the peace. And Lily sees all this through a child’s eyes as she struggles to find connection with her tempestuous mother, keep up with her older sister and cousin, and find the elusive spirit of the cello she is required to practice for two hours daily in time for the local talent show.

Marcia Peck’s WATER MUSIC: A Cape Cod Story, is a subtle, gentle, beautifully-written book that is nonetheless full of deep and powerful feelings, struggles, and conflicts just under the surface—like the ocean on a calm day. The emotional turmoil of the adults is all the more painful from being seen through the eyes of an innocent child who loves them all and is frightened and confused by their conflicts. The characters are complex, interesting, and wholly human in their flaws and virtues, all of them struggling with themselves and each other—even as they reach out to each other as best they can. The brilliant natural beauty of the surroundings provides a calm, serene, and uninvolved background for the merely-human squabbles of the inhabitants.

The author’s writing style and deft hand with description set the gentle, poetic, wistful tone of the book: “In front the horizon had given way to a lavender-pink liquid, connecting sky and sea […] The boat rolled gently this way and that, afloat in the center of a world as seamless and as rainbowed as a soap bubble.” All in all, this is both a heartwarmer and a heartbreaker of a book.

Marcia Peck’s WATER MUSIC: A Cape Cod Story is a touching, alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of family strife and love—told with the innocent wistfulness of a child’s perspective and set in the breathtaking loveliness of a Cape Cod summer.

~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader