Compass Rose

A Providence Journal Best Book of the Year

A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year John Casey follows up his National Book Award-winning novel Spartina with an extraordinary return to the marshes of Rhode Island's South County. Elsie Buttrick, the prodigal daughter of Sawtooth Point, has just given birth to Rose, the child conceived during her passionate affair with Dick Pierce. At first she is wary of the discomfort her presence poses to Dick's wife, May, and other inhabitants of their gossipy, insular community. But as Rose slowly becomes the unofficially adopted daughter and little sister of half the town, she magnetically steers everyone in her orbit toward unexpected--and unbreakable--relationships.