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A Novel
by Dwyer Murphy
Book Reviewed by:When a group of old college friends reunites for a summer vacation at a beach house in coastal Massachusetts, a sudden disappearance and the arrival of a seductive stranger threaten to unearth the darkest secrets of their relationships.
As they hurtle into midlife, Jim and his closest college friends get together to rekindle the bonds of their friendship in his family's beautiful, generations-old vacation home along Buzzards Bay, the demands of work and family having caused them to drift apart over recent years. But what begins as a quiet and restorative seaside escape takes a darker turn when Bruce, an aloof but successful writer, disappears from the house without a trace, sending the group into an uneasy tension.
Meanwhile, a series of mysterious break-ins besets the town, which is the site of an old Spiritualist campground turned idyllic fishing village. After a series of uncanny disturbances at the house, Jim can't help but feel that someone—or something—is watching them from the other side of the marsh. And with the arrival of a strange, seductive guest at their home, the group begins to question the very nature of their experiences—along with their already precarious ties with one other.
In The House on Buzzards Bay, Dwyer Murphy returns with a chilling, atmospheric page-turner that explores the bonds of friendship, the growing accumulation of life's responsibilities, and whether our youthful dreams can endure the complexities of adulthood.
The House on Buzzards Bay would risk being yet another rehash of The Big Chill for a new generation, except for author Dwyer Murphy's more sinister sensibilities. While he utilizes all the hidden secrets and jealous rivalries that are the standard fare of "friend group" fiction, he also feeds a deeper unease into the story. A slim novel at under 300 pages, this is a slow burner all the same. Murphy is more interested in crafting an atmosphere than a plot; his focus is on carefully stacking up moments of uncertainty, each one knocking the Dutch angle of Jim's narration even more off-kilter...continued
Full Review
(722 words)
(Reviewed by Alex Russell).
Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Island
A classic New England literary mystery pitched somewhere between The Secret History, If We Were Villains, and L'Avventura, with all of Dwyer's economy and wit. I loved it. Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of Inland
A delicious, brooding heart-stopper of a book.In The House on Buzzards Bay, Dwyer Murphy's gothic thriller, a group of former college roommates reunite for their summer vacation in a beachfront mansion. The house, owned equally by all six friends, was built by the local Spiritualist community in the nineteenth century as a home for the many people coming to join the sect. As Camille, an expert in communal movements, points out to the novel's narrator, the Spiritualists were just one example of "what was going on in America in those days, especially in the Northeast. Small, hopeful offshoots, everywhere you looked." Indeed, with the industrial revolution changing the fabric of society and opening the door to new ways of living, nineteenth-century America was a breeding...
If you liked The House on Buzzards Bay, try these:
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by M. L. Rio
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Intelligent, thrilling, and richly detailed, If We Were Villains is a captivating story of the enduring power and passion of words.
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