The summer guest

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, celebrated financier Harry Wainwright longs for one more visit to a beloved fishing camp in the remote reaches of Maine, to cast "a flyline over water as still as God's held breath." Camp owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader who inherited the property from his war-hero father, is honored to grant the wish of the kindly millionaire, who has been a summer visitor to the camp for more than 30 years. Arriving with his wife, son, and granddaughter in tow, the frail Wainwright makes a dramatic bequest that transforms a tranquil lakeside sojourn into a life-altering event. Narrated in alternating chapters by characters whose lives are inextricably linked to each other--and to the camp--Cronin's novel reveals the rugged beauty of his native New England and the tender terrain of the human heart.