When Thora and Lyle Ritchie married - at sixteen and seventeen - they knew just what they were doing. They were very much in love and wanted to shelter each other from a nasty world. They married and grew up; but in growing up they grew apart. As Elisabeth Ogilvie begins her story, Thora and Lyle have been married thirteen years. The hardship and sacrifice of their lives is starting to tell. They are no longer the world to each other. And when the beautiful, wealthy Vivian Perth returns to the cove for the summer, the Ritchies' discontent becomes a searing misery that almost wrecks their lives. Miss Ogilvie tells her story wtih a profound understanding of the moods and temper of marriage. Thora and Lyle are very real, very comprehensible people. Their differences are exactly those that strain most happy marriages. And the rugged, isolated, tempest-torn Maine coast against which the novel is set provides a vibrant counterpoint to the story.
Author
Elisabeth Ogilvie’s striking evocation of the atmosphere of the Maine seacoast that is the background of The Seasons Hereafter is no accident, for she lived in just such an area for many years, and her love for its people and their way of life has influenced all her novels. Her activities on Gay’s Island, where she spent most of the year, included writing, gardening, and “trying not to suspect that a bear is at the door, a moose lurking in among the alders, or a horned owl hovering overhead about to bear away the cat.” She contributed a considerable amount of writing of magazine fiction and children’s books, and is the author of several novels, including There May Be Heaven, The Witch Door, Rowan Head, The Dawning of the Day, Storm Tide, and one book of nonfiction, My World Is an Island.
