The Winterpoor

by George Michelsen Foy

In a unique and groundbreaking novel that gives voice to the silent residents of Cape Cod, Murdo Peters, an artist and Cape native, must struggle for his own sanity and freedom as he tries to care for a mentally challenged and neglected boy while also salvaging the floating studio of a long-dead artist, navigating a doomed marriage, and attempting to make his own art. All this on the real Cape, not the sunny beaches and lighthouses of the tourist resort, but the dark Cape of the off-season, its environment stressed by pollution and greedy developers, its year-round residents racked by storms, addiction and poverty. As the perils to himself, to the boy, to Daisy (his new love interest) threaten to overwhelm them all, Murdo must draw on his deepest reserves of courage and hope to defeat the demons of his past and defend the people, and the peninsula, he loves.

280 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2025

About the author

GEORGE MICHELSEN FOY is the author of ZERO DECIBELS: The Quest for Absolute Silence, and twelve critically acclaimed novels. He is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in fiction. His articles, reviews, and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Harper's, The New York Times, and Men's Journal, among others, and he has been an investigative reporter, writer, and/or editor for BusinessWeek, The International Herald Tribune, and The Cape Cod Register. He teaches creative writing at New York University and is married with two children. Foy divides his time between coastal Massachusetts and New York.

Reviews

[Ellen Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. I loved the relationship between the boy and Murdo. This was a heart warming unique plot of a man finding what makes him happy and what he cares about in life amid all the chaos in the world. His determination was admirable and I feel like I know him so well he’s a personal friend of mine. The plot was genius. Love of all kinds is a great theme of this book with beautiful writing and a plot that had me hugging this book to my body when I finished.

[David Churbuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Michelsen Foy is one of the best novelists I’ve read who can manage to portray modern life on Cape Cod. I’m a fan of his maritime writing, especially his novel Mettle, as well as his nonfiction writing about the sea such as Run the Storm (about the El Faro disaster) and Finding North. His latest novel is The Winterpoor (2025, Sea Crow Press). It’s a timely, sad, and compelling elegy to those Cape Codders who live on the margins of the mansions and the resorts; the homeless, the poor, and the lost souls pulled down by the peninsula’s rush to the bottom as developers, realtors, planners, and politicians line their pockets and milk the place to death.

The book is a delight for anyone who grew up in Barnstable, affectionately name checking local characters and places with a true inside eye. The story stars a moonshine distilling artist, a Big Lebowski hero named Murdo Cahoon Peters with deep roots in the town, on a quest to restore the houseboat barge of a forgotten artist, to end a dead marriage, save a raccoon, and befriend a lost boy falling through the cracks.

The chapters are interspersed with poetic digressions into the death of a salt pond and the seasonal cycle of migration and spawning of flounders, eels, fiddler crabs, and Arctic Terns. Foy laments the Rape of the Cape without belaboring the obvious and lets the corrupt machinations of the Real Estate Lobby and the bumbling management of the town — especially the village of Hyannis — speak for itself.

The Winterpoor brought back memories of John Casey’s 1989 National Book Award winning novel Spartina, and then exceeded it. Reading it from cover to cover on the last day of summer made me shudder at the coming cold, and grateful to live in a place as beautiful and fragile as I do.

[David Chaffetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is deeply rooted in the seascape of Cape Cod, literally very deep. The neighbors of Eel Pond, rich, poor, local, tourists, pursue their lives as best they can, almost entirely ignorant of the myriad forms of life that grow around below them, plankton, sand hoppers, quahogs, herons, and eels. Foy connects the macrocosm of nature and the microcosm of unhappy marriages and personal griefs. Currents and storms thousands of nautical miles away intervene in the characters' lives and change them forever. The accidental dumping of Chinese algae into the harbour threatens the local fishermen who hang on to the decrepit harbour, coveted by tourists and pleasure boats. As in some of Foy's other novels, there's a Lord Jim-like hero, who must ultimately redeem himself, but Foy also tackles big, contemporary themes, like the conflict between the summer people and the year-long residents, environmental change, loss of innocence. These themes loom large, putting into perspective the characters' passions and dreams. But we can't be untouched by the mortal fools. The book conveys powerful messages about male vulnerability, friendship and love. Foy suggests that despite our greed, fear, destructiveness and egoism, we are redeemable. He tells his story with the grit and acerbity of the engraver artist which his hero is. We have not read such muscular, briny prose since Robert Lowell's Quaker Grave Yard, or since Melville. This reader found the book spell-binding, and was sad when it was over.

[Cd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this!

[Tony Heck · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This is pure Cape Cod, he knows, the old Cape of incestuous relationships, the sweaty-close connections. Boy, he thinks suddenly, god I hope nothing’s happened to boy.” The novel, The Winterpoor, by George Michelson Foy, draws us into the struggles of its protagonist, Murdo Peters, set in the backdrop of a more gritty and raw Cape Cod removed from those who know its tourist draw. In the midst of struggling in work and the ongoing burden in restoring his residence, he takes on the role of caretaker for a mentally challenged and neglected boy. As a literal and emotional intensive storm heads his way, Murdo must find the strength to protect the people he cares about and find his way forward. The Winterpoor offers an exploration of resilience amidst environmental decay and personal turmoil.

I received an advanced complimentary copy and am voluntarily leaving this honest review.