Book Description

The story centers on Angela and Lutie, who have been married for over thirty years. Early in the book, I chronicle their upbringings; while Angela was sheltered and filled with the good things in life, thanks to her mothers personality and desires, Luties life was filled with hard work and the tragic deaths of his parents and an eventual brutal period of service in Korea. After the war, he puts himself through college and takes a bankers job in the very bank run by Angelas stepfather, and so they meet, fall in love, and marry. After the death of Angelas mother, in the early eighties, the couple decide to accept the legacy she left of a fine home on the Island of Marthas Vineyard, where much of Angelas growing up took place, and substantial investments to guarantee a genteel lifestyle. The transition from their home of three decades in Pittsburgh to a life of leisure on the Island takes some getting used to, but they soon come to enjoy it. In fact, before long Angela has taken on the mantle left by her mother as hostess and renowned artist in the community. Meanwhile, the unexpected reappearance of a hated old combat soldier from Korea thrusts Lutie back into that time period and that mentality and begin to take its toll. This, combined with an unwelcomed population burst on the Island, starts to wear on his normally imperturbable psyche. Angela observes the changes in her husband, which is never more noticeable than the night he attacks and beats up a crowd of rowdy teenagers breaking glass and scattering trash on his favorite beach. The real trouble will not begin until he discovers his loathsome old comrade frozen and dead in the house of a friend, closed for the winter. A vision of a chainsaw passes through his head, and suddenly he has a plan to stem the tide of growth on his beloved Island. It isnt long before the population is shocked and appalled to learn that a chainsaw-wielding maniac is wreaking havoc on the Island, chopping up human bodies and displaying their parts around the various towns. While the rest of the community is in a panic, Lutie grows increasingly agitated at what he has started; and when the investigation reveals the source of the bodies and the fear is assuaged, he decides to sink his remaining parts in the sea and get his life back to normal. It appears that he is in the clear, but is he? This book is skillfully crafted, highly suspenseful, and cleverly written, with an understatement that only serves to reinforce the plotline. It presents the troubling idea that people are not always what they appear, and it is a testament to the detrimental psychological effects of being in a brutal war zone. Given the high number of veterans experiencing this trauma in our current wars, the book has a high contemporary relevance. My wife, our two children, and I lived on the Island for over twenty years, and I have tried to distill the charm and grace, as well as the gritty underside, of this beloved piece of paradise. Book Reviewsilver-shingled cottages, salty boats and the captains who man them, patches of sand between glacial boulders, the crisscross of ferries and the mysterious realm of the rich. Such are among the evocations of Marthas Vineyard. Author Tony Friedman and his wife Barbara washed ashore on the Vineyard in the early 1970s, spent nearly 30 years living and raising their children here, and now comes Tonys first novel: Dead Season on Marthas Vineyard. Tonys keen sense of observation, deep knowledge of the Islands history, and a lifetime of storytelling combine in Dead Season on Marthas Vineyard to make a Writer finely constructed tale of the Tony interaction of several layers Friedman of Vineyard people, their lives and dreams, and the lengths to which each will go to keep the Island special. The dance of characters follows the clash and harmony of locals who make the Island function and the privileged who come for the season. With his finely tuned ear for authentic language and