There were quite a bit of themes that made the book contemporary fiction. Some of the themes were the main character was going through a divorce and was spoken of frequently through out the book, a school shooting, Miles’s daughter had an eating disorder that lead to anorexic, and a credit card company moved into town and took over several small businesses.

One of the other themes of the book I thought was loss and love. There were several events of loss and love through out the book Miles had lost his wife to another man, his mother to cancer and C.B. Whiting had taken his own life. C. B. wasn’t spoken of through out the book much when his name was mentioned it was always about the person that committed suicide years

I don’t think that Miles got his generosity or his manners from his father. Max Roby was always stealing money from Miles’s glove box. Max was a nuisance but not only to Miles’s; the town also considered him a public nuisance and a town drunk. Max wanted hand outs from any one that he could get them from.

At the end of the story Mrs. Whiting’s body was found floating in the river with the cat still alive and hissing vigorously on her shoulder. I think that some how the cat lead Mrs. Whiting to the river and she fell in and drowned. This was C. B.’s way of getting back at both Miles and Mrs. Whiting for not being able to have what he wanted most in life.

When Miles had grown he went back to Martha’s Vineyard hoping to strike up some old memories. The cottage was old and ran down. Miles walked to the beach and sat in the same spot where he and his mother had their picnics. There he must have fell asleep while he was a sleep he dreamed that Charlie’s ghost paid him a visit. Charlie’s clean shaven face resembled the bearded face of C. B. Whiting. The book never stated that C. B. and Charlie was the same person; Miles figured this out on his own after all these years. C. B. was so much in love with Grace and he knew that he couldn’t be with her. Grace was highly set in moral values that she probably wouldn’t leave her husband because of Miles.

When Miles was a young boy he and his mother went on a summer vacation to the beach. There they stayed in a cottage at Martha’s Vineyard. There Mile

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