Kinds of Love

by May Sarton

Book Overview

Christina Chapman and her husband Cornelius, both past seventy, are summer people--people who come to rural New England for the summer months and go home to the city when the cold weather comes. This year, however, Christina and Cornelius have decided to stay on.

May Sarton's Willard is a small town in the rocky hills of New Hampshire, a place that attracts the untameable, the wild, the gentle. As Sarton takes us into the lives of the people...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393311015
• ISBN13: 9780393311013
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 466 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Journey of self-discovery

Charming and poignant story about an elderly couple, Cornelius and Christina Chapman, who have spent many "summer vacations" in the small town of Willard, New Hampshire, who now decide to stay full-time. Christina becomes close friends with a local woman, Ellen, and much of the novel is about their developing friendship (it's a rocky relationship, much like the terrain in which the book is set). Interspaced with the developing story are journal entries kept by Christina in which she steps back and evaluates situations occurring with Ellen, her husband, her family, and the world of Willard. Sarton is an excellent nature writer and her descriptions of rural Willard throughout the different seasons are excellent. Christina feels at the end of the book that by living permanently in Willard "I am close to my real feeling now," and that she and Cornelius have come into their own. A very appealing and uplifting story.