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Cape Cod Stories: Tales from the Cape, Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard
From the drifting sand dunes and quaint shops of Provincetown to Nantuckets whitewashed verandas and craggy beaches, Cape Cod Stories evokes all the rustic beauty and history of this picturesque area in the words of Americas best writers. With a striking new cover, this popular anthology is the next best thing to a summer on the Cape.
224 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2002
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92 people want to read
About the author
John Miller
45 booksJohn Miller has edited a number of intriguing anthologies for Chronicle Books, including Lust and White Rabbit. He runs Big Fish Books, a packaging company in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 18, 2026
Quite a collection of potpourri about Cape Cod. We have just about every type of story you can think of including short stories, excerpts from novels, poems, diary entries, op-eds, nature essays, humor, a couple of American Indian folktales/fables, a travelog, a memoir, a ship’s log entry. Even a recipe for fish stew! There are 26 items in the 200-page book, so most are only a few pages.
The core of the collection is made up of seven pieces, some by well-known authors.
In an excerpt from his novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance, Norman Mailer gives us a story of a drunken writer in a bar, 24 days (he’s counting) since his wife left him. He tries to woo a good-looking woman away from her companion with a tall tale.
In The Chaste Clarissa, John Cheever’s character proudly shares his technique to bed a newly married woman he tells us is “beautiful but stupid.”
Denis Johnson tells us of a Kansas man, an off-season visitor to the cape, who recently tried to commit suicide. We get some local color of Provincetown’s gay community. The piece is an excerpt from his novel Resuscitation of a Hanged Man.
We have a chaste May-December romance in The Last Kiss by Arturo Vivante. The story is focused on The Provincetown Players theatre that included such notables as Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Theodor Dreiser. There’s a twist: the main characters are a young male actor and a much older woman.
In Provincetown Diary, Louise Rafkin, who is known for her stories with a lesbian theme, spends a year on a fellowship in Provincetown. “Of all the small towns in which to land, I’ve managed to set down in queer heaven.”
Only John Updike could write an essay entirely focused on the tactile sensations of your feet in Going Barefoot: “…the seethe and suck of a wave tumbling rocks across you toes in its surge…”
Kurt Vonnegut, who lived on Cape Cod for twenty years, gives us humor from the Kennedy era in The Hyannis Port Story.
Paul Theroux gives us a memoir in Summertime on the Cape. (He lives part-time on Cape Cod and in London and Hawaii.) The Cape is a great place but it’s still a bit startling to see this world-traveler write “But anyone who grows tired of Cape Cod needs his head examined, because for purely homely summer fun there is nowhere in the world that I know that can touch it.”
The collection includes a few short oldies by Thoreau, Poe and Melville and a poem by Sylvia Plath.
I liked this collection because the selections truly were Cape Cod stories in local color and in the types of characters in the stories. Regional collections like this are sometimes disappointing because a story ‘set in,’ let’s say, Boston, doesn’t make it as a ‘Boston story’ if those elements are missing.
I grew up near Cape Cod (in New Bedford) and I enjoy reading about the area. Here are three classic naturalist books that I have reviewed about ‘The Cape’ as well as a couple of other fictional works.
Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau
The House on Nauset Marsh
The Outermost House
That Old Cape Magic
Stealing Fatima (about the Portuguese American community in Provincetown)
Another Cape Cod book from my sister – thank you! (I have a Cape Cod shelf.) By the way, isn't it odd that one might say 'I live IN New Bedford' but I've never heard anyone say that of the Cape - it's always 'I live ON Cape Cod.'
Top photo of Vonnegut’s house in Barnstable from newengland.com
Provincetown’s gay scene from tripsavvy.com
The core of the collection is made up of seven pieces, some by well-known authors.
In an excerpt from his novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance, Norman Mailer gives us a story of a drunken writer in a bar, 24 days (he’s counting) since his wife left him. He tries to woo a good-looking woman away from her companion with a tall tale.
In The Chaste Clarissa, John Cheever’s character proudly shares his technique to bed a newly married woman he tells us is “beautiful but stupid.”
Denis Johnson tells us of a Kansas man, an off-season visitor to the cape, who recently tried to commit suicide. We get some local color of Provincetown’s gay community. The piece is an excerpt from his novel Resuscitation of a Hanged Man.
We have a chaste May-December romance in The Last Kiss by Arturo Vivante. The story is focused on The Provincetown Players theatre that included such notables as Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Theodor Dreiser. There’s a twist: the main characters are a young male actor and a much older woman.
In Provincetown Diary, Louise Rafkin, who is known for her stories with a lesbian theme, spends a year on a fellowship in Provincetown. “Of all the small towns in which to land, I’ve managed to set down in queer heaven.”
Only John Updike could write an essay entirely focused on the tactile sensations of your feet in Going Barefoot: “…the seethe and suck of a wave tumbling rocks across you toes in its surge…”
Kurt Vonnegut, who lived on Cape Cod for twenty years, gives us humor from the Kennedy era in The Hyannis Port Story.
Paul Theroux gives us a memoir in Summertime on the Cape. (He lives part-time on Cape Cod and in London and Hawaii.) The Cape is a great place but it’s still a bit startling to see this world-traveler write “But anyone who grows tired of Cape Cod needs his head examined, because for purely homely summer fun there is nowhere in the world that I know that can touch it.”
The collection includes a few short oldies by Thoreau, Poe and Melville and a poem by Sylvia Plath.
I liked this collection because the selections truly were Cape Cod stories in local color and in the types of characters in the stories. Regional collections like this are sometimes disappointing because a story ‘set in,’ let’s say, Boston, doesn’t make it as a ‘Boston story’ if those elements are missing.
I grew up near Cape Cod (in New Bedford) and I enjoy reading about the area. Here are three classic naturalist books that I have reviewed about ‘The Cape’ as well as a couple of other fictional works.
Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau
The House on Nauset Marsh
The Outermost House
That Old Cape Magic
Stealing Fatima (about the Portuguese American community in Provincetown)
Another Cape Cod book from my sister – thank you! (I have a Cape Cod shelf.) By the way, isn't it odd that one might say 'I live IN New Bedford' but I've never heard anyone say that of the Cape - it's always 'I live ON Cape Cod.'
Top photo of Vonnegut’s house in Barnstable from newengland.com
Provincetown’s gay scene from tripsavvy.com
August 17, 2020
A very representative collection of stories that gives a good taste of the Cape. Very sweet! I found it suprising how well these stories hold up over time.
January 8, 2022
I didn’t actually come across this book, which is how I find most of books the books I’ve read. I actively sook it out. I had been spinning yarns to my two sons about my now “infamous” summer on Nantucket, until they eventually got bored. Wanting to continue my doggy paddling through the warm bath of Nostalgia i googled “Nantucket Diaries” and this was the closest thing to what I was looking for.
I didn’t have very high expectations until i saw the list of authors. Was pleased to see so many greats feeling more or less the same way I did about summers at the beach in New England. Just makes you want to go to a clam shack and order lobster rolls. Speaking of which, I spent that summer with another Thompson and we got a kick out if the Thompson’s Clam Bar jingle constantly playing on the radio (Here it is
https://youtu.be/_iAm6mTbbKk )
I didn’t have very high expectations until i saw the list of authors. Was pleased to see so many greats feeling more or less the same way I did about summers at the beach in New England. Just makes you want to go to a clam shack and order lobster rolls. Speaking of which, I spent that summer with another Thompson and we got a kick out if the Thompson’s Clam Bar jingle constantly playing on the radio (Here it is
https://youtu.be/_iAm6mTbbKk )
April 23, 2024
I thought this book was alright. I found that some of the stories weren’t really Cape Cod specific and they could have taken place anywhere. Since I live near the Cape, I have spent quite a bit of time there, so a few of the stories did capture the special feel of the location.
September 9, 2019
Despite the cheesy cover, some gems by Vonnegut, Plath, Thoreau, Theroux, Poe, Melville and even Helen Keller
September 18, 2024
Variable, as is the nature of anthologies.
October 2, 2024
A great, easy and entertaining read. Short stories from all kinds of writers. Pick one up, read it and go back to in when you want. Excellent writing.
November 29, 2024
A great selection of stories encompassing the high and low of the Cape Cod experience. Would've liked to see Dorothy West included.
September 7, 2010
This is a collection of short stories, book excerpts, essays and poetry about the islands off Massachusetts. Included are Melville, Poe, Plath, Mailer, Paul Theroux, Vonnegut... My favorites are a short story by John Cheever called "The Chaste Clarissa" about a summer regular on the cape who spends his vacation trying to seduce a taciturn young wife whose husband is away, and the essay "Provincetown Diary" by Louise Rafkin, who won a place in the town's writing residence program.
This seemed like the perfect book for an end-of-summer read.
This seemed like the perfect book for an end-of-summer read.
July 20, 2016
Great short stories from Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. I especially like Helen Keller's A Summer in Brewster; Edgar Allen Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym; John Updike's Going Barefoot. So many great stories, it's hard to pick the best one. They are all excellent!
October 15, 2007
I enjoyed most of the stories, particularly the one about the guy who gets drunk and can't figure out where he is.
Read
August 7, 2011It's an alright collection. Some great classics and some not-so-great modern pieces.
September 7, 2011
i love this series
August 24, 2015
amazing poems by sylvia plath and mary oliver about mussels. who knew?
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews