Breaking the Silence, December 1, 2024

Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams

Breaking the Silence with host Dr. Gregory Williams With Guest, Award-winning writer, author of Water Music a Cape Cod Story, Marcia Peck This week's Special Guest will be Marcia Peck. "Marica is the author of Water Music: A Cape Cod Story." She is an award-winning writer and has received many awards. Her articles have appeared in Musical America, Strad Magazine, Strings Magazine, and Senza Sordino. Her work has been supported by The Minnesota State Arts Board, The Loft Literary Center, Ragdale Foundation and Hambidge Center. Guest, Marcia Peck's book, Water Music, The bridge at Sagamore was closed when we got there that summer of 1956. We had to cross the canal at Buzzards Bay over the only other roadway that tethered Cape Cod to the mainland. Thus twelve-year-old Lily Grainger, while safe from ‘communists and the Pope’, finds her family suddenly adrift. That was the summer the Andrea Doria sank, pilot whales stranded, and Lily’s father built a house he couldn't afford. Target practice on a nearby decommissioned Liberty Ship echoed not only the rancor in her parents' marriage, a rancor stoked by Lily’s competitive uncle, but also Lily’s troubles with her sister, her cousins, and especially with her mother. In her increasingly desperate efforts to salvage her parents' marriage, Lily discovers betrayals beyond her understanding as well as the small ways in which people try to rescue each other. She draws on her music lessons and her love of Cape Cod—from Sagamore and Monomoy to Nauset Spit and Wellfleet Dunes, seeking safe passage from the limited world of her salt marsh to the larger, open ocean.